New tool collects scent to save lives

Every 40 seconds a child goes missing in the United States. In one day alone, 2,300 children and adults will be reported missing. It could happen to your child, parent, grandparent or yourself. There’s a new tool out that could save you or your loved one, and help change this growing statistic.

Veteran law enforcement officers Dr. Coby Webb and Travis Shows work with canine trained bloodhounds to track missing people and criminals.

“Tracking basically is when a dog is given a scent item to go look for that one person and they will follow their scent and track them and that’s where the dog goes from point a to point b,” explained Webb.

But, in their years of experience they seem to come across the same problem — finding that specific item with that persons’ individual scent.

“It’s just like a snowflake or a fingerprint — there’s no two alike,” said Shows. “If you don’t have a good item to give the dog you can’t get that good start and without a good start you’re not going to have success.”

Success is something they always strive for, so they created the Find’em Scent Kit.

“So I do the laundry in my house — my scent is on everything,” said Webb. “So, if one of my children went missing, the dog wouldn’t know who to track and that would be the error.”

An error there’s no time for. When a person disappears, the first three hours of the search are the most crucial.

“We don’t have time as handlers to get the call, realize that somebody’s missing, go to the potential house or wherever that person’s missing from and then try to rule out what item we could possibly use for that dog team to get started,” said Shows.

So the pair came up with a way to avoid wasting that valuable time.

It takes about five minutes to complete the kit and collect your scent. It then goes in the freezer, where it stays good for up to one year.

“When you don’t have that article and you can’t do your job because you know you’re struggling with a contaminated article for that dog and you believe it’s an uphill battle for that dog, it’s frustrating,” said Webb.

The pair also created the Find Me Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to training and educating people about the Find’em Scent Kit. Click here for more information on the organization.

Click here to purchase a Find’em Scent Kit.