Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
cloying sweetness I remembered. It was a light dry must, like mold on an orange, not potato
leaking in the vegetable bin. Just a twist of cloth with dried body fluids provided enough to
start training Solo.
It could have been anyone inside that pipe. Cadaver scent is chemically generic, not linked
to an individual. Nonetheless, I was secretly glad that my and Solo's introduction to cadaver
work was with what I wanted to believe was a benign death. It might not have been. Nancy
didn't care. She's not sentimental. She wants to donate her body to the University of Tenness-
ee's Anthropological Research Facility, more fondly known as the “Body Farm,” so she can lie
out on a hillside, decomposing. Preferably in the open air. Not under a tarp but not naked.
Otherwise, she says, she'd prefer to have her body divvied up for search teams to train on.
Solo came to know the pipe as “fish.” It signified fun and would ultimately teach Solo
that—even more than the buckets—that odor was what he should look for. Nancy showed it
to him. “Good fish,” she said.
He sniffed. Sure. Whatever. Interesting, but not as interesting as Whiskey. Then Nancy
started to gambol about, large and nimble and silly, whipping the pipe around, making it ir-
resistible. She encouraged him to grab it. She pulled it away. He followed, grabbed it, tugged
hard, and she let him have it. He won. My, what a strong, big dog you are.
In the world of working dogs, and when laying a foundation you can build on, dogs get to
win. They get what they want, they are encouraged to chase it, grab it, chew it, shake it, kill
it. One problem is that men are often afraid to gambol around, and even more afraid to lose.
Mike Baker, the K9 sergeant at the Durham Police Department, always tells his new, stiff,
nervous handlers to raise their deep voices high and get silly: “Come on. Be more exciting
than pee on a tree!”
For Solo, the PVC pipe was more exciting even than Whiskey. By the time the pipe was
no longer needed to signify that the search was beginning and was bequeathed to another
cadaver dog in training, it had fully served its purpose—forever bonding the concept of play
to the concept of dead human in Solo's head.
It underwent many iterations. At first fish was the toy that got tossed out, retrieved, played
with. Then it became a toy hidden in an easy spot in the yard or house. “Go find the fish!”
Then it was the toy that I presented and pretended to throw before tucking it under my arm
or in my back pocket, holding out my empty clean hands, sending him forth to find the fish
somewhere else. he first few times, he stared at me hard. I know where it is. Your hands
aren't clean. Then he entered into the game, yowling before bounding away. After all, it was a
lot more exciting than pee on a tree. I was slowly introducing Solo to the idea that he might
have to solve a problem on his own, rather than staring at me to try to suss out the answer.
