‘Insurance in a jar’ helps K-9 officer find missing woman

A sheriff’s office is praising the usefulness of scent preservation kits.

Articles of clothing and personal effects are useful for dogs to pick up a scent when trying to track down a missing person, but they’re not perfect. If more people live with the individuals, smells can mix and get muddled.

That’s why scent preservation kits come in handy.

A K-9 officer in Florida recently tracked down Blanche Davenport, a missing 88-year-old woman with dementia, with the help of such a kit. It was so useful that the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office even recommended it on its Facebook page.

The kits come with gauze pad to capture a person’s scent, a specialized jar to hold the pad, tape and labels. The scents can be preserved for years.

“If that person should wander off and get lost, we’ve got insurance in a jar,” Citrus County Deputy Nancy Suto told WFLA.

The kit helped K-9 Officer Ally find Davenport in five minutes — a job well done that earned her a vanilla ice cream cone, too.