# Interesting search



## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)




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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

We worked a plane crash in Nashville. Over 200 alerts and recovered tissue/bone pieces. Was very overwhelming, as the dogs would literally alert on one piece while sitting on another. Total of four bodies, the largest pieces recovered were approximately basketball sized. The remains were all basically frozen with little to no decomp.


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)




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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)




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## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Wow. That's chaos. How many dogs were working the area?

Are all the dogs trained to leave a particular find alone after alerting on it and then respond in close proximity to a different find?

David Winners


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

Three dogs total. I believe the other two were, they had already worked their sections before I arrived.
I train mine to "find more". Though there were so many that some were being passed over for larger sources at times. We would break and let the team pick up the flagged parts and work again. Once the sun began to thaw the top layer,we had many more alerts. Several of the small pieces when frozen solid were nosed, tasted, or touched with a paw but no final alert.
It was interesting to compare how all three separately trained dogs behaved the same way.


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Nice Job. 

I'm assuming that the aircraft fuselage was already removed. Did they have a human searcher sweep first to visually pick up the obvious human bits and pieces first?


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

That sounds intense. Good job.


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

Yes, this was after the largest debris and HR were removed.


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## Jim Delbridge (Jan 27, 2010)

yup, those types of searches can be daunting. Best reason I know to routinely train tight source overlaps though.

good job,

Jim Delbridge


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

We worked a small plane crash where there were four passengers coming back from a pheasant hunt. All participants had full limits on the pheasants. 
It was frustrating for the handlers but the dogs did an excellent job of ignoring all the pieces of pheasant tissue all over the ground.


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Wow, how grueling. So freezing obscures the scent?

T


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Odor would still be there but lower levels. 

I know we train for multiple finds but usually 5-6 in close proximity not something like this! Probably would not since this would be such an oddity, whereas dis-\articulated remains (by animals) are more of a reality for most of us.

David had another good question, I don't know. We normally do expect dogs not to "double-dip" and just say "good boy, back to work" or some such thing if they do but this is so massive....Do they learn to ignore flagged sources or just keep a mental map of hides they already found? 

What about reward for so many? Normally we don't reward on a search but have a play session afterwards then go home and work some training hides but after a grueling scenario with dozens, hundreds of finds would behaviors start extinguishing without reinforcement?


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

Normally, they would know what they alerted on and move on. This was just too many and we had some re-alerting.
On frozen, yes they can still have odor, since this froze not long after the plane crashed, there was little to no decomp at all. I train on fresh material often, so it wasn't an issue for mine, but the others were a little confused at first.
I reward on a search if its an obvious find. We rewarded many times. Libby never tires of her tug, so that was helpful. I did pull her out of the area and amp her back up a couple times. We work fast, and since this search didn't allow for a lot of fast moving I had to get creative.


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

If the remains had much decomp freezing wouldn't affect it much, other than what the air is doing. Until we had a bit of a breeze the dogs had to get close to source before they noticed it. Once the air picked up moving, and especially once the sun came out, we had more alerts rather than just the dogs nosing and looking for more.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Good point. I think you would need to reward after so many multiple finds. I have rewarded during a search when the find was clearly obvious .. I see where you would need to keep it subdued in the area so as not to scatter remains.


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

Because the finds were so close to each other, I would probably do every 2-3 finds. And then pull out, play a bit, let the dog take a break while they cleared out the finds and then head back in. Sounds like you did an excellent job. How many total additional pieces were found? And I would suggest going back in 2 weeks or so and doing another sweep. The freeze-thaw cycle will probably expose some more stuff.

After thinking about it the other option is getting some string and laying out a grid pattern (similar to what archaeologists due during excavations. And doing some close work, one grid at a time.


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

They have decided to use a bobcat and scrape the area removing the soil. Since this is the yard of the YMCA, they didn't want to chance a kid finding something.


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## julie allen (Dec 24, 2010)

We flagged over 200 remains.


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## Sarah Platts (Jan 12, 2010)

julie allen said:


> We flagged over 200 remains.


Busy day! To bad about the bobcat. Cuts out all the scavenger hunts.....


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## David Winners (Apr 4, 2012)

Great job! Thanks for sharing.

David Winners


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## Ang Cangiano (Mar 2, 2007)

Sounds like your dog did an excellent search on a very tight and overwhelming scent picture. 

You've probably discussed this before, but what program did you use to get that map? I'm assuming a dog mounted GPS as well?

Ang


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