Maya's first track is in blue and second is in red.
I received a call-out from Rita Argiros, K-9 Coordinator for NYSFEDSAR and my team president, at 8:38am requesting a trailing dog for a subject in Marcellus, NY. I called Roger Fox, the chairman of NYSFEDSAR, on his cell phone to confirm that I was leaving for the command post immediately.
I arrived at the command post at 12:15pm. Signed in with Brian Buff, CCHSAR senior K9 Handler. Roger explained the scenario to me with Brian. The scenario was that there were two guys in their twenties that were intoxicated and they crashed the car in the ditch then ran off. One of them was picked up quickly and the other we were concerned was in the woods injured.
I was brought to the meet some family members, where there was a jacket that many people had touched. I felt that this scent article was inadequate and requested to go to the subject’s residence.
A sheriff deputy led me to the house where I extracted a shoe sole and a pair of boxers that the mother and another female (sister or girlfriend?) had touch —those were the best articles available.
I returned to base and was informed that I had to share my article with a sheriff trailing dog. I led the sheriff deputy to the PLS, where I created an additional scent article using a gauze pad for the sheriff deputy to take with him and I held my scent bag for the dog to take scent from, which the dog clearly did by sticking his entire head in the bag. At that point, I left with my flanker to go to my first starting point.
My first starting point was a set of tracks that Amir Findling, a fellow teammate of mine who happens to live just 2 minutes from the search areas had been on for some time. It was approximately 1:30pm. I had to walk in 350 yards with K-9 Maya on lead to get to where I scented her. Prior to scenting her I have a standard procedure that I like to do when I am given an area to cast the dog but it’s not really known if the subject was there or not. I take a person (in this case my flanker) and have them cut a hot track across the potential subject’s trail. Then I have the cross tracker hang back about 100 yards while I cast my dog for scent. This is done to visually test my dog that if she were to jump trail (which she has never done thus far in her career) she would likely do it on a hotter trail. If the trail of a subject she has been scented on, is in the area, seldom in a forest environment does it take longer than 3-5 minutes at most for her to commit to trail. I casted her for 15 minutes and there were times when she seemed like she was going to commit but never followed through… and this is a dog that will tow a car out of a ditch, if solid on trail. After 15 minutes I praised her off that scent, put her back on her collar and heeled her back to the truck with my flanker and Amir.
The Marcellus Fire Chief brought the three of us to the place where the first victim was picked up. It was approximately 2:30pm. I brought Maya to where the car went off the road to scent her there and started casting. Within seconds it was clear that she had scent of the subject and within 3 or 4 minutes we were advancing north into a corn field on the west side.
Maya stayed committed to the trail throughout. I rested her 4 times to give her water and to let my flanker catch up and take a break as well. It was fairly windy and the scent certainly seemed to behaving the way it should on a day like this — moving far and wide (possibly hundreds of yards given the fairly flat open terrain). Side note to our dog handlers reading this: I always say that wind is an air scent dog’s best friend and a trailing dog’s worst nightmare. So — we continued on as we gradually moved farther west until we came out onto Dublin Road. Very open area with the wind at that time blowing down the hill across the street from the east. So that’s the direction that the dog initially wanted to go.
As we came out onto the intersection Maya’s first desire was to go across the road and a bit south then she looped west and north. On the west side of Dublin Rd. prior to crossing the road there were three houses that she went by with zero interest. We crossed onto Scotch Hill Rd. and the first house on the left she checked the garage doors with great intensity. I circled the house a few times and she went back to the door every time. I brought her to the other side of Scotch Hill Rd., where I casted her for scent and I brought her in front of two houses across the street she had zero interest. I brought her up to the intersection to re-scent her for my own insecurities. When I offered her the scent article — she barked at me — turned around 180 degrees and went back to the white house and jumped up on the garage door. She has never done that before and clearly was getting frustrated that I was not believing her. At that point I felt that I had to call base and inform them that I felt the subject was here or had been here at some point.
Police officers arrived at the house around 3:40pm, where Maya, myself and my flanker. This appeared to be a really good lead because the couple that live in this house were the same age as our subject and known to be big time party people. They checked the house and found nobody.
I have done over 500 trails with this dog and anytime she has lingered at a bench a door or door way, building, etc. it has been because we had the subject stop there for at least 5 minutes or more. You have to realize that to a trailing dog, whom is following a few skin cells here and there and then to run into an area where the subject even just hung out for a few minutes…. The dog will notice that and the handler should be able to read that visually. This was an ideal area for scent to collect because it was on the east side of the house under a car port, attached to the house with tons of junk under there— all shielding scent movement near that door.
Since we were in a suburban area and based on what my dog was telling me it was the assumption that the subject was being evasive and I felt based on my experience at this incident that it made sense for me to stop our search effort here and not push farther north or south. I have attached a map with this report and the black arrows show the areas that were not checked for scent. My search was concluded at 3:45pm. Headed back to based to sign out with Brian.
The subject was located roughly a half mile south of where I ended my trail. Nobody knows the route the subject had walked nor will we likely ever know. But the subject was not in the woods and was found wearing clean clothes and denying anything pertaining to the car accident upon being discovered.
