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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] The First Tested Cadaver Horses

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  • From: "Jorene Downs" <Jorene@CEOates.com>
  • To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] The First Tested Cadaver Horses
  • Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 15:18:50 -0800


----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Nowacki" <wwfarm@wiktel.com>
[...] Cadaver Horse Demonstration on a very cold
November 21 Minnesota morning. Temperatures were well below freezing
plus wind chill factors. [...] I believe a quote
from an out-of-state SAR professional who witnessed this demonstration
says it all: "I expected to see success and I saw it."

I was there. I said that. ;)

Yep, it was below freezing - I suspect high 20s - plus a stout cold wind. Knowing from the herd that a horse can both air scent and scent discriminate, my concern regarding cadaver scent was related to the very cold weather and the very small mildly scented material hidden for the horse and mini to locate. What surprised me was the yearling miniature horse obviously staying focused - searching for the scent on command, following the drift to the scented material - for over 20 minutes. Youngsters tend to have shorter attention spans, but the young mini appeared to stay focused just as well as the 12 yo gelding.

What Terry didn't share was the artificial scent used to train cadaver K9 states it isn't effective in temperatures below freezing. Yet both horses located it in difficult conditions, within the time frame allotted for the NASAR K9s. And Terry shared with me later that the following day, when that human cadaver scented material was under 8-9 inches of snow, the riding horse and the mini again located that material.

I consider this confirmation that horses can be successfully trained for cadaver searching. I don't know how well they'd do with older, more deeply buried human remains detection, but if the body is on the surface of the ground I suspect the horse could perform as well as the dog in similar circumstances. In the warmer weather when scent tends to rise, the horse may have an advantage over the dog simply by starting with the nose higher off the ground so the horse can "test" a larger drift area for scent..

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jorene Downs
Tulare SAR - Hasty Team ICP Team
www.ceoates.com/sar
Tulare-Kings CERT
www.tk-cert.org




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