# Cadaver Source



## Bryant Jackson

Where do you obtain your cadaver source? We have about a pint of old human blood that we are using. Has anyone had any luck working with their local hospital or etc? Any paperwork or form examples you would be willing to share? What do you train with? Any value in the SAR Cadaver bone set from Skulls Unlimited?

Any help would be appreciated.


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## Nancy Jocoy

It varies wildly from one place to another. Some state laws are mute; others specific. Find anyone and everyone doing SAR in your state and ask them. Unless you are affiliated with a police department or a SAR team I would not expect too much help.

Don't ask health professionals to slip you stuff from wreck scenes etc. It could cost them a world of hurt jobwise. Sometimes you can own your own body parts after surgery and get folks to donate to you but even that...I almost got a lot of tissue from a breast reduction but they put it in formalin rendering it useless. Placentas are one good source fairly easy to get.

I think that just buying individual bones to be a better value than the "SAR" kits. I like vertebra, kneecaps, and digits - the bones from those places are not ideal but better than nothing (bone room, skulls unlimited).

It seems adult teeth are usually pretty easy to get from dentists.


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## Bryant Jackson

Nancy, I am a first responder myself and understand the warm from taking anything of a scene or a call. A very good point though.

I knew a few individuals that have said they would be willing to donate their placenta when the time comes. So hopefully something will come from that. You make a great point about what the hospital or etc may place the source in. 

I will have to make contact with some local dentists after I type up a letter to send to them.

Thank you for your help.


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## Jim Delbridge

I'd limit the use of blood as over time you will learn that "blood happens" a lot and it should not be percieved as an indicator of foul play. Also, blood is an extreme source as it diffuses very quickly and very far compared to other HR sources.
Look for oral surgeons and sympathetic dentists for teeth. The ones I work with give the pristine teeth to dental students to practice their skills on and saves the abcessed, fractured, and bad teeth for me.
On bones, it's better to be a smart buyer. The Bone Room and Skulls Unlimited are both viable sources, but their supplies are dwindling as China closed its doors to bone sales some time back. Before China, most of the bones were coming from India as in the "untouchables." Intact pristine bones are now going for a premium, but think this through. If you are going to train on bones, the real world aspect is that many of the bones found will be damaged by circumstance and local animals. If you buy ribs, try to get only the long ribs as most places charge the same regardless of size. Buy a large rib and break it up into several pieces if you want smaller sources.
For placentas, look for mid-wives in your area that do delivery in the homes. My first placenta lasted me eight years through frugal use of it, but many scenarios will burn up a lot of placentas very quickly. Consider treating your first placenta this way. Put it in a qt mason jar in a cooler/refridgerator at 36-38 degrees for days to a week to allow most of the blood to separate. Take the tissue and section it into multiple slices such that you can age each slice to create different decomposition scent windows producing different chemicals for the dog to train on. Date and freeze each of these sections to preserve the scent window you wish to train on. 

Other than that, building your source list takes time and networking with similar groups in other states that you can meet at seminars.

Also, contact your local medical examiner and/or coroner to see where their sympathies lie. I work for a state medical examiner and no longer have acess through my own office as there have been too many cases in recent history of potential dog trainers appropriating sources for their own uses and the family finding out and suing. Fortunatley, I'm at a place in my training and experience where this is not a big deal. 
I personally feel that the best HR dogs develop from an early age with a foundation of dried bone and teeth for the first year of training from elevated, surface and buried. After that you can then introduce tissue components gradually. Working with just teeth, you can train most of the foundation skills.

Jim Delbridge


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## Gerald Dunn

when you get blood work done just have them draw a vile for you, make sure it is a clean vile, some all ready have med's in them. I use an oral surgeon for my teeth and bloody gauze, make sure you pick up the same day and that there not put in a empty bag so you have the roots and blood. do you have your Blood born pathogen certification?


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## Sarah Platts

A couple of things first. One, make sure you have a standard in place for the handling and storage of your aids. Where are you going to keep them and how will you dispose of them when no longer needed. No one wants to see material they have given you ending up as the lead story in the newspaper. Be sure to take a bloodborne pathogen class which you will need anyway because some require proof of completion for your cert testing. Also a crime scene preservation class.

You can contact the local AG office in your state to see if they are aware of more specifics. My state only has rules and regs for what's called Regulated Industries such as hospitals, funeral homes, etc. Cadaver dogs, at this time, isn't a Regulated Industry so the rules and guidelines are easier on us.

Contact friends and friends of friends for the placenta. Some will give you the Ick Factor look and think you are weird but that's normal. If you know anyone who is undergoing surgery or any medical procedure have them save the bits and pieces. Make sure they don't put it into formulin or formaldehyde. Sterile water or saline is o.k. but not the others. 

Contact a sympathetic dentist for the teeth. 

If you know of someone in hospice care, see what the family plans on doing with the body. Approached right and they may give you some of their deceased loved one either body parts or the cremains.

You can collect the dirt, carpeting, mattress pad, etc from where a body has lain on it. Decomposed on is even better. All that adiposere fat and juices.... great aids. Clear it through family and/or PD before you take anything. Normally once PD clears a scene no one will care if you take a can of dirt or a hunk of the mattress that they are throwing away anyway.

Sometimes you can get the clothing off a decomped body via the local ME but you need to check with them. Those are items that are normally not given back to a family unlike personal possessions. Some will give you towels that have soaked in brain or body juice. Just stay away from urine, feces, and digestive juices. You don't need your dog alerting on human vomit or someplace they took a dump or piss.

Network with other larger teams. Develop a rapport and close relationship with other HR folks. Most of us tend to trade stuff around. If nothing else it gives you a chance to train on their stuff. It will take time to build your scent library. Have them saturate scent pads with their material. While not as good as the real thing, it gives you something to work with.

Remember to proof off of clean scent pads, pvc pipe, jars, etc or whatever you put your stuff into.

Watch how much blood you train on. Blood is only one, very small part of the cadaver scent spectrum.


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## Nancy Jocoy

Just as I would be cautious about using blood too much as a training aid, I would also be cautious about too much "dirty dirt" as, while it does contain source odor, it also contains a matrix of other odors (and may include some animal odor depending on contamination) which could be problematic. IOW, I would treat it like the occasional odd source, but stick with bone and tissue for the major training.

While you are building your library get a freezer to dedicate to it even if you don't have a lot of stuff and be sure to keep dry bone separate from tissue as it soaks up odors. You will find they can escape even sealed glass jars.


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## Bryant Jackson

Gerald Dunn said:


> do you have your Blood born pathogen certification?


Sure do.

Thank you all for your help everyone. You have given us some great starting points.


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## Jim Delbridge

On cadaver dirt, that's one of the easiest ways to train your dog on "something else." I've even had well-meaning officers drive me over to where a body was found to dig up some good dirt. I always ask them to give me the general area and then work the dog on it. Most times the dog won't hit and I'll ask them then to take me to where the body was recovered from. Every time the dog didn't hit, it was a body dump where the initial crime scene was elsewhere and the body was dumped someplace obvious so that it would be found quickly.

I went to one mutual search training where a group had set up gallon jars of "dirt" for you to run your dog past to locate the "cadaver dirt." Before ever running my dog, I asked them how they'd created their "cadaver dirt." They swelled up with pride and pronounced, we buried a placenta under our rabbit cages such that you have to tell us which dirt (mixed with rabbit dung) has the placenta.
I asked, " how long was the placenta in the earth?"
"Two years"
"Been lots of rain over the past two years? "
"oh yea, everything grows like weeds out there."

"Thanks, but I don't think my dog is up to it."

Placenta can liquefy quickly especially in an area with active decomposition. All I would have been doing with my dog would have been teaching him that I get excited on rabbit dung.

Deaths in junk yards tend to mean all sorts of chemicals get poured into the earth as well. So, I'd refuse any "cadaver dirt" taken from such a location as you don't know what else is in the earth as well that you'll be imprinting your dog to alert on.

To get decedent "cadaver dirt", contact forensic archeologists/anthropologists. Give them some plastic quart containers with lids with your team contact numbers on it to take with them and ask nicely if they will put some dirt siftings in the containers on a crime scene dig after they've sifted all the evidence out of it. Once you get them back, you can move the dirt into mason jars and freeze(to kill any flora seeds in the dirt that will grow in the "well-fertilized soil". Once they've sifted the dirt for evidence, they tend to leave it be anyway, so chances are they'll be ok with it. They'll know what dirt was close to the remains as they excavate.

Jim Delbridge


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## Sarah Platts

Jim Delbridge said:


> , we buried a placenta under our rabbit cages such that you have to tell us which dirt (mixed with rabbit dung) has the placenta.
> 
> Jim Delbridge


WTH? I won't ask what this was but this is a first for me. Would never make it this way nor would I recommend it. Rabbit manure grows stuff like wildfire so they were right about that even they were wrong about how they did it. This is a good reason to always ask what you are working on or where it came from.

Most of the dirt I have was stuff recovered out from under a rotting body. When I've made my own I take a hunk of of flesh and skin and let it rot out into a quart of distilled water although someone else uses saline. Makes a great soup.


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## Nancy Jocoy

The only I have had other than some we got from a seminar and it had some adipocere in it, was under significant human decomp in the woods....I have wound up with dirt in some of my specimens though after burying them and did not worry too much about that.


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## julie allen

Call the lab at each nearby hospital and talk to the pathologist. I get everything from small bone or tissue samples to entire amputations. Tons of placenta.
If you are ever in TN, let me know a month in advance


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## Nancy Jocoy

It depends on the hospital. We could get amputations but WE would have to approach the person losing their leg or foot and ask them to sign it over. Even if it would be discarded the hospital won't release it without the rightful owner saying so. It is a bit macabre kind of thing to ask for.


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## julie allen

Nancy Jocoy said:


> It depends on the hospital. We could get amputations but WE would have to approach the person losing their leg or foot and ask them to sign it over. Even if it would be discarded the hospital won't release it without the rightful owner saying so. It is a bit macabre kind of thing to ask for.


Have you tried different hospitals? I work for two, both would not release any material, in fact one wouldn't even let me keep my own placenta when Idlivered my son. Yet another in the next county will donate anything they don't use, with minimal requirements.


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## Sarah Platts

Same issue, it really depends on the hospital. And some are real quirky on it. I got a friend who's getting a hysterectomy and I'm already asking for the item. The owner's willing but now have to see what hoops the hospital is going to require.

I told my family doc that anything they cut off/remove from me - is coming home with me. They think it's hilarious.


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## Sarah Platts

I remember the first time I approached a family. The individual was a hospice patient at home. Initially, it was to get the cremains. Family wasn't sure but then called me up a week later saying something along the lines of in a casket funeral, no one's gonna notice that he's missing a few toes.... 

I eventually ended up with a whole lot more PLUS the cremains. The family thinks it's great and the gifting allowed me to help out 3 other teams with material. Alot of times you have to approach a family, plant the seed and let them think about it a while. Once they get over the Ick Factor and the Ghoul Issue most are prtty open to the idea.


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## Bob Scott

Sarah Platts said:


> I remember the first time I approached a family. The individual was a hospice patient at home. Initially, it was to get the cremains. Family wasn't sure but then called me up a week later saying something along the lines of in a casket funeral, no one's gonna notice that he's missing a few toes....
> 
> I eventually ended up with a whole lot more PLUS the cremains. The family thinks it's great and the gifting allowed me to help out 3 other teams with material. Alot of times you have to approach a family, plant the seed and let them think about it a while. Once they get over the Ick Factor and the Ghoul Issue most are prtty open to the idea.



The negative from getting materials from an embalmed cadaver is that you will also have to proof the dog off of the embalming fluids. Any conatainer or object that is consistently in contact with your target odors must be proofed off of. Something as simple as surgical gloves need to be proofed against if you always use then to handle target odors. 
Some yrs back when the team I was on visited the Forensic Anthropology Center (Body Farm) in Knoxville TN they told us that the don't even accept "donations" for their experiments unless it is free of embalming fluids because that inhibits the decay process and gives misleading info. 
Dogs can process and divide one scent from another but if it's common to the training that extra odor needs to be proofed.
Nancy and others? Thoughts?


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## Nancy Jocoy

I would not take embalmed source but depending on where you live, remains that are going to be cremated may or may not be embalmed. Strangely, some places require it.

I turned away tissue from a breast reduction that was signed over because it is SOP to put it in formalin and analyze it after it is removed. That is true for some tissue but not all (apparently not for most limb amputations)

Proofing notwithstanding, it is toxic stuff.


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## julie allen

As far as cremains go, what benefit is there to train with that as source?

I have some, and have used them, but you can't be certain its all human, as many also cremate animals, medical implants, cardboard, etc is in the ash as well. Also, where would you ever come across a cremated body? House fires do not get hot enough to turn a body to ash.


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## Nancy Jocoy

It is a nice training aid for demos a little more PC than some of the other stuff and certainly better than using pseudo

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Jim Delbridge

The handler/trainer always has to be aware of all the scents a source may be presenting to the dog. I know a dog handler that has a massive collection of animal bones to proof with. When I visited the handler's home, I noticed all the animal bones were stored right next to the human remains freezer. I convinced the handler to toss all those animal bones and I'm pretty sure the dogs proofed off those bones were in conflict. Dried bones will absorb most scents in their vicinity and hold them for a long time unless cleaned properly with distilled water and heat. Even then I use new dogs(set up a blind where a dog team unfamiliar with the scent is asked to work an area) to show me if a source or proofing source is as it should be.

A seminar I used to teach at requested I set up a problem that I had set up one year on a whim. I called it "handler hell." I went to multiple stores and got all the containers I'd ever seen handlers use, these being blanks. I collected road kill for two weeks. I then went tot he local butcher and got routine meat sources. I set up handler hell with all the gotchas I've ever seen other handlers get burned on or ignore. I first place two real human remains sources in the area, one being bone and one being decomp with a good distance between them. I then start tossing distractions all over the area. I had one instructor tell me at the end of the seminar that I'd forgotten to collect "that scented puppy tennis ball in the hanging suet cage that his dog had just alerted on when every one was done." I told him to keep it as it was a clean blank for the dogs that are tennis ball crazy. That instructor will remain nameless.

I have all the handlers that wish to work it come with me at the beginning. I hand them each two flags that they can put their names on if they wish or mark such that they know which one is theirs. I inform them all that there are only two valid human remains sources in the area. I instruct them that they can watch each other if they wish (or not). If someone wants to work alone, the others should respect that and turn to face the other way while they are working. I then proceed to go set up other problems, leaving them all to it. It's always produced interesting results. One year I had some really nasty beef fat that had sat in a jar out in the sun for a year.....turned out to be attractive to some of the dogs. Some dogs have alerted on fresh beef tongue wrapped in a clean white towel and placed in a suet cage, the blood showing on the towel. .....is it the dogs or is it the handlers....I don't care.... they flagged it, they'd have flagged it on a real search.

Each subsequent year the students requested I set up another. I've used McDonalds burgers in plain site in a suet cage at 8 feet up and had handlers talk themselves into it, suggesting I'd just be plain evil and put a human source under it..........?why would I need to be so evil? ....As the Shadow used to say (yea, really aging myself now....) "What evil lies in the hearts of "handlers"?" Handlers do it to themselves and then torture their poor dogs. If a dog alerts on latex, it's the handler's fault. 


When everyone is done, I show them the location of the two valid sources. I let them come to their own conclusions. There will always be the handler that flagged something three feet away that will convince him/herself that the dog was on the right scent, but tagged the wrong thing.....happens all the time in real life if you've ever had to search a suburban homeless jungle or back alley. oh oh, I did offer to set this up one year behind a local Burger King....they decided that was too much. One year I had a handler come to me while I'm setting up the other problems and ask me if it's ok if she uses more flags. I looked at her and said, "you understand there are only TWO valid sources?" She nodded, almost in tears, but stated that she had to know all the bad things she'd taught her dog to alert on. I'm easy with those into self-torture and told her to go crazy. She planted a total of 10 flags.....





I have had this done to me and I've done it to others. Buy a new box of latex gloves. Spread all but one of them evenly out over a meadow on a nice calm day.....put some of them on your hands (clean, no cuts) and turn them inside out and toss them down. Take one clean glove and handle a wet human remains source with it. My favorite is a little adipose tissue, clear but strong scent. Turn the glove inside out. Toss that glove out in the middle of the others. Have the handlers find the right glove..... As the dog teams improve, begin cutting down the overlap space between the gloves. ....I'm thinking two feet apart from each glove is fair.

As much work as these can be to set up, they have to be done on a regular basis as our dogs, just like us, get fat, dumb, and happy with routine. If the handler always sets out five sources and decides one day to set out only four, I can almost guarantee you that the dog will find a fifth something to alert on....it might be valid in the dog's mind as it was downwind of a really stinky source and made a good visual...still not right....believe me, I get burned with my dogs just as much as everyone else does. Recently, worked burieds where one handler had their dog dig in every possible buried spot to check, you are guaranteed that some of the blanks will become contaminated. Does that make an alert on a blank any more valid? Unfortunately, no. Can I as a handler understand it? Yes, but can't fault the dog. Just means more scenario work to bombproof off of other handlers because we often have to follow other dog teams on high profile searches. It means my dog might have to go back and forth between holes to compare. It means I might not call them right away and work the dog from multiple directions....I know I've frustrated some evaluators doing that, but when I don't I might fail.

As to the original source of this part of the discussion. While I've worked embalmed graves, I won't train on embalmed remains. One of the doctors of the Body Farm (after Bill Bass left) told me that embalming holds for a decade or two then our bodies quickly liquefy. The scent will have both components of human remains and embalming fluid in there, but I only want the dog to pay attention to the human part. I'm not sure if I'd proof off of embalmed remains though. I think that might put the dog in conflict. Knowing a lot of embalmers, I know that there are variations in embalming. The cadavers that are used for gross anatomy classes get a more thorough embalming than most funeral homes provide and I'm sure there are some embalmers that are more thorough than others. Working for an M.E., I could never ask a funeral home for any remains as that would present a conflict of interest and a betrayal of trust on my part. 

I've got cremains as well, but rarely train on them. I'd prefer to use charred remains. The dog can find them, but I've never had a need to work a search where the training was required.


Oh well, enough tangents.


Jim Delbridge


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## Sarah Platts

Bob Scott said:


> The negative from getting materials from an embalmed cadaver is that you will also have to proof the dog off of the embalming fluids.


This body was not embalmed because the family ended up donating the whole thing to me. I harvested off what I wanted and then had the rest cremated.


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## Sarah Platts

julie allen said:


> As far as cremains go, what benefit is there to train with that as source?
> 
> I have some, and have used them, but you can't be certain its all human, as many also cremate animals, medical implants, cardboard, etc is in the ash as well. Also, where would you ever come across a cremated body? House fires do not get hot enough to turn a body to ash.


Interesting thought. I had someone who owns a pet cremation service donate me about 20lbs of pet cremains. I use them for proofing. I'm not sure if there is or isn't value to train on cremains. But I do simply for the reason of "why not?" I never really know what I may be called on to work. But I have heard stories where people got rid of the body by cremating it in a burn pit so I guess it's possible.

Jim, I have done similar to what you call the Handler Hell course. I've been subjected to it and have set it up for others. First I set up a field with all the normal things. Dug holes, streamers, flags, empty cages, pvc pipes, mason jars, gloves, etc. I then let my dogs run all over it and encouraged both to dig at a hole. I flagged their pee spots and flagged one spot where they took a dump but I removed the feces and threw a pile of dried grass there.

Like you, I tell them to work the problem however they want and when they get done to tell me what they have. Reward or not, it's up to the handler but any alerts are not confirmed by me until they get done. What I have seen is that handlers rely to much on visual markings not believing the dog when it tell them there is nothing there. I watch one handler do 10 passes by a cedar tree I had hung a streamer on until the dog sat in frustration. Most dogs do alert on the hole that I got my dogs to dig at. One handler called a pee spot when the dog stopped to sniff, pee next door to it, and move on. Anything flagged makes the handler overly search the nearby area. Anything the dog stopped to sniff at required at least 3 passes to confirm or make sure the dog stopped being interested.


I've set up a second problem by contacting several teams and asked them what the top 3 things they've seen dogs alert on plus stuff I've seen dogs really pay attention to. What I ended up putting out in a box line-up drill was tuna fish, cat/dog food, hot dogs, bitch in heat scent, animal bones (deer and sheep), my worn underwear from the day before, dirty diapers from a child still on a milk diet, 2 live mice in a cage, dead fish, decaying roots or swamp dirt, spaghetti sauce, tennis balls, dryer sheets, dead animal (mouse), a rag scented with Chloe perfume, a stuffed toy that had been heavily mouthed.

On the box line-up, the live mice and the underwear tripped up the dogs the most consistantly. Then it was the spaghetti sauce, tennis balls, dead mouse, the mouthed toy, and the hot dogs.


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## Bob Scott

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I would not take embalmed source but depending on where you live, remains that are going to be cremated may or may not be embalmed. Strangely, some places require it.
> 
> I turned away tissue from a breast reduction that was signed over because it is SOP to put it in formalin and analyze it after it is removed. That is true for some tissue but not all (apparently not for most limb amputations)
> 
> Proofing notwithstanding, it is toxic stuff.



The Body Farm has to go through a lot of paper work in order to get donated bodies that aren't imbalmed becaue that's law in most areas if not nation wide.


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## Jim Delbridge

It's mainly the law in most states because Funeral Directors have really good lobbyist. Embalming is mainly needed if someone is to be viewed in a service or if the body has to be transported out of state. Many belief systems don't accept embalming, so procedures are developed to accomodate both sides. 
If I wanted to be buried unembalmed on my land, I could, but....it would require that I be buried within 24 hours and have a fenced off parcel just for burial.....via law developed by funeral directors. Other states have their own laws. 

Many people these days just can't afford a funeral and burial, so cremation is becoming more and more popular simply due to economics.


Jim Delbridge


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## Bob Scott

julie allen said:


> As far as cremains go, what benefit is there to train with that as source?
> 
> I have some, and have used them, but you can't be certain its all human, as many also cremate animals, medical implants, cardboard, etc is in the ash as well. Also, where would you ever come across a cremated body? House fires do not get hot enough to turn a body to ash.



The team I was on was called by the FD to search burned buildings. Often times abandoned buildings were used by vagrants for shelter and in the winter it wasn't uncommon for them to get burned down. Same thing in "normal" house fires. 
One fire Cpt told me it was often a cost effective thing. A small house in particular wasn't hard to search by the fire fighters but if it was a collapsed building it was cost effective to have dogs pinpoint where the victim was. The building were sometimes raised by bulldozers afterwords and this costs. 
That said, house fires have their own scent problems. All the water washes a lot of scent to the lower levels and basements. Younger dogs could be fooled by this and want to take you to the basement. Not something easily trained for.


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## Sarah Platts

Bob Scott said:


> That said, house fires have their own scent problems. All the water washes a lot of scent to the lower levels and basements. Younger dogs could be fooled by this and want to take you to the basement. Not something easily trained for.


One of the questions to also ask is if there have been ANY prior deaths in the structure (lesson learned from a house fire I worked).

Other things: 
- carpeting acts as a great strainer for holding odor
-if you get an alert down low be sure to check up higher. Liquified fat and flesh will follow the water flow creating a odor trail (Bob's right about that).


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## Jason Demo

We have obtained our sources from the local ME office.


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## Thomas Barriano

A slight tangent but how can any hospital say you can't have the placenta from your own child?


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## Nancy Jocoy

I know that the hospital here would not let my daughter give me the placentas from both of my grandchildren. Probably if we told them we wanted to bury it or eat it (yes people did that in the 80s, ecccch) or do some sacred ritual with it we could have had it.

They said our DHEC would have a cow. I know that is not true but, well, CYA I guess.


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## Thomas Barriano

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I know that the hospital here would not let my daughter give me the placentas from both of my grandchildren. Probably if we told them we wanted to bury it or eat it (yes people did that in the 80s, ecccch) or do some sacred ritual with it we could have had it.
> 
> They said our DHEC would have a cow. I know that is not true but, well, CYA I guess.



I remember when Barbara Hershey "Seagull" did that with her childs (with David Carradine ?) placenta


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