Bloodhounds in the News!

EverythingDogBlog #140: Bloodhounds in the News! Police Bloodhounds and Patrol Dogs, Too!

Not only was a bloodhound the Hound Group Winner (click on Group Judging for his official winner’s photo) at Westminster this year, but recently in Prince George’s County, Maryland, a police bloodhound (see photo, courtesy of the Prince George’s Police Department) successfully located an elderly dementia patient who had wandered away from home and become lost, according to an article in the Bowie Patch.  

The 62-year-old District Heights grandmother left home during the night but the bloodhound, Tayaut (see photo courtesy PGPD), located her within two hours, about 70 yards into some woods where she had fallen and become tangled in the brush.

Tayaut, Police Bloodhound in Prince George's County, Maryland

Maryland Bloodhound School

In a phone interview while your favorite reporter was grocery shopping in BJs, Corporal Don Smith of the Prince George’s Police Department told EverythingDogBlog that Tayaut is a 2 ½ year old who left her home state of Colorado at the age of 10 weeks.  She is a donation from the ALIE Foundation which, since 1993, has donated bloodhounds to police departments all over the country to aid in finding lost children and other people (named after Alie, a 5-year-old girl who was kidnapped and whose body was found by a bloodhound four days later).

Tayaut and Smith were trained by the Maryland State Police for 10 weeks and their training continues every day. They were taught search methods in various locations around Maryland and at all hours of the day and night at “Bloodhound School.”

What Does a Police Bloodhound Do?

Both Tayaut and Corporal Smith’s patrol dog, a Malinois, work full-time, rotating shifts, but can be called out at any time of day or night. One of three bloodhounds on the force, Tayaut loves her job!

When not hard at work, Tayaut is “just another pet dog,” but, with at least 50 times more olfactory cells than humans have, the Police Bloodhound is not trained to apprehend, bite or chase a suspect like a patrol dog is. Rather, the Bloodhound finds missing persons and is so excited by the job that the human officer must be in good shape to keep up and follow after!

Note: Howard County, Maryland, does not use bloodhounds.

Read more about it:

See EverythingDogBlog’s review of a great book for 2013, Bloodhound in Blue, about the first Bloodhound “police officer” in the great state of Utah. This review will be posted here tomorrow, as well.

Also available from www.DogWise.com are Dog Detectives: Train Your Dog to Find Lost Pets by Kat Albrecht (to be reviewed later by EverythingDogBlog) and Ready! The Training of the Search and Rescue Dog by Susan Bulanda, former Maryland resident.

(This was first published on ColumbiaPatch.com on 20 March 2014.)