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August 18, 2006     Barnstable Patriot
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August 18, 2006
 
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C'ville woman, dog would hound 'til lost is found SCENTIMENTAL - Jo-Ann Lacoste with bloodhound "Sophie" (right) and air-sniffing dog, Necro, doing what it does best - sniff air. Bloodhound's ready to lead the search By Paul Gauvin pgauvin@barnstablepatriot.com Jo-Ann Lacoste of Centerville has a plan that makes a lot of scents. She wants to help Cape Codders avoid the tragedies that sometimes occur when a child or elderly person is lost or a major crisis occurs. To that end, Lacoste has been training for five years at her own expense to add another dimension to the Cape's official search and rescue assets - a bona fide bloodhound trained by her ARTFUL SNIFF - Sophie gets the scent of an article of clothing. HOT TRAIL - Sophie picks up the scent as handler Jo-Ann Lacoste assures the hound doesn't become distracted. SUCCESS - Ten minutes later Sophie finds Juliette Lacoste hiding in a crevice between a wall and a large headstone. over four years in places as far away as Virginia with, as she says with humor, "the good ol' boys." Her dog, "Sophie,"is ready for trailing lost per- sons, Lacoste said last week, while another dog, "Necro," is being trained to find "cadavers" as in the case of Hurricane Katrina or other crisis scene where bodies might be located or buried in rubble. "The cadaver dog is trained to find any 'human' decomposition scent, as opposed to animal scents," Lacoste said. Cadaver dogs, she ex- plained, work through air scenting any human scent in a given area, while blood- hounds that trail living persons are "scent specific. " She said some dogs work successfully on cold cases a decade old. "Like fingerprints ," she said, "everybody has a specific scent, but cadav- ers all smell the same." She said bloodhounds can also work through "institutional odors " such as in a nursing home or prison to select a specific scent. Not all dogs, Lacoste explained, can pick up a scent hours and even days after someone goes missing as can bloodhounds. For ex- ample, she said most police dogs are multi-function for immediate tracking, as well as sniffing out drugs and at tacking if necessary. "Bloodhounds have more of a single purpose. I could have seven people try on a baseball cap, then have one of them leave. The bloodhound can sniff the cap, sniff the six people still there, and go out and find the other." Lacoste said. "They catalog scents like a com- puter." Working with blood- hounds isn't as simple as putting a leash on them and letting them pull you howl- ing through the A woods, as often ¦ seen in prison JS escape mov- M cent dem- ¦ onstration , ^ Lacoste's husband , John, a Centerville chiropractor, and daughter, Juliette, 10, started from the same place then went in different direc- tions. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Lacoste and Sophie were outdoors to collect the scents. "First the dog is casted in the area the person was last seen," she said as the dog sniffed in a wide arc and came back to where the scents were strongest. Which scent to find? She had the dog smell an item of Juliette 's clothing, and the team, woman and dog tethered together as though forming a new creature , be- gan the process first by put- ting a harness on the dog. "When the harness goes on and she hears a com- mand, she knows she's going to work," Mrs. Lacoste said. The dog then searches for the departure point of the scent she's been asked to trail, leading along, nose to the ground, sniffing from side to side, tree to tree , across roadways, occasion- ally being "corrected" from distractions by the handler. Ten minutes later, Sophie found Juliette well hidden in a crevice between a stone wajl and large headstone. "The dog searches for the highest concentration of the scent she's been asked to find , which is not exactly always where the person walked. That's why it's called trail- ing. Tracking, on the other hand, follows footsteps ," Lacoste said. "Lose the footsteps and you lose the target." Mrs. Lacoste points to the case of Noah Curtin, a 22-year-old West Barnstable man with mild schizophre- nia who went missing in mid-May of last year. Curtin was fond of daily hikes through heavily wooded conservation areas in West Barnstable and Marstons Mills. He drowned in a Marstons Mills pond, and his body was recovered in June. "That, and the little Bourne boy who went miss- ing in New Hampshire, are classic cases where blood- hounds may change the outcome. We never promise anything," Mrs. Lacoste said, "but we do our best." She said both events convinced her something more could be done for her community. The police said Curtin was found two miles from where the police had concentrated its searches. In addition to the dogs. Lacoste has a school pro- gram fashioned from the California Hug-A-Tree project that she has already shared at several schools. It includes a 12-minute video produced by the National Park Service advising chil- dren what to do and not to do and to stay put if they become lost . "Then Sophie and I dem- onstrate that if a lost child remains in the same place , Sophie will find him or her. "We're not in competition with the police or anyone else," she said, "and we don't charge for the service. 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