Scent in Sizzling Summer

Given this summer's record breaking heat wave, I wanted to explain how heat effects a search dog’s efforts to find a missing person.

Extreme heat affects a dog’s ability to search in two basic ways. First, a dog’s olfactory sensory capacities work best when moist and are compromised by hot dry air. Second, extreme heat detrimentally affects the scent source itself. As the air gets hotter, scent cells become less diffuse and thus are harder for a dog to locate or detect. Compare a ripe, juicy grape to a shriveled raisin. The smell is still there, it has just harder to find. Of course, for the analogy to work, as the temperature cools a raisin would have to re-inflate with moisture and regain its “grapeness.”

The best time to search in the summer is early in the morning when dew is on the ground, or at night. While handlers can’t see well at night, dogs have no problem, as they “see” with their nose. But most people go missing during the day, not night. So K9 teams are asked to search when it is incredibly hot. Some handlers will work their dogs in the heat, stopping every 15 minutes to hydrate and rest. But, it is often better to wait a few hours so the dogs do not exhaust themselves and can work more quickly and effectively to find the missing person.

Stay cool -

Jennifer Jordan Hall
Executive Director