Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Every training aid for every working dog has its drawbacks. If you are training a bed-bug dog,
you must find a way to keep your bed bugs fed and happy (and contained). If you are train-
ing a bomb dog, you have to be comfortable carrying nitroglycerin and gunpowder around
in your trunk.
If you have a cadaver dog, you run into a different kind of supply and storage problem.
Having diverse materials to train on is crucial, and “decomp,” as it's called, comes in all vari-
eties: from recent blood on a surgical swab, to lovingly harvested dirt from a Civil War burial
ground, to six-hundred-year-old bones from the Mississippi Delta.
Happily for Solo, North Carolina has reasonable laws about cadaver-dog training material.
The wisdom tooth of Nancy's ex-husband was only the beginning. Solo would need a variety
of materials to train on, from fresh to older to ancient. Material that would, albeit at a scaled-
back level, mimic what he might find out in the woods, buried, or in an abandoned building.
So in the midst of answering student e-mails in my university office, I'd find myself distrac-
ted, mail-ordering a search-and-rescue dog package from the Bone Room in Berkeley, Cali-
fornia—although I called someone at the state medical examiner's office first to make sure
it was legal. It was. I was delighted when the order arrived in the mail: a small box with an
ivory tibia and some toe bones in a plastic bag. The foot bones looked remarkably like the
Styrofoam peanuts they came nestled in.
Less than a year later, evidence started mounting that some of the plastinated bodies dis-
played in the popular museum show
Bodies: The Exhibition
came from prisons in China.
Curious, I started researching the possible source of my specimens from the Bone Room. The
results were inconclusive, but I realized that I needed to find other sources. So, obviously, did
the Bone Room, which posted on its website: “We regret to inform you that our stock of
damaged and discolored bones, set aside as Search & Rescue Dog training packages, has fi-
nally been totally decimated, and we will not be able to offer them for a while. Unfortunately
there are absolutely no human bones coming into the country at this time, and while we are
currently trying to find a source that would hopefully include more of the 'dog quality' spe-
cimens, we do not yet have a line on a possible exporter.”
When having my teeth cleaned, I talked with my dentist about how to get hold of a couple
of molars for training. He was happy to provide a few, and kind enough to lend me, briefly,
the jawbone from an anatomical teaching skull that had been in his office for decades, to see
how Solo would behave. Solo reacted, though he was clearly surprised when he put his nose
next to it. He was underwhelmed by the source: That's it? I reacted to that bit of scent? I,
on the other hand, was thrilled and reported the outcome to the dentist when I returned the
jawbone.
A K9 officer from a nearby city provided me with carpet from a processed suicide scene.
One warm summer evening found me with a friendly death investigator who had handled
