Skills of cadaver dogs tested by police

There is a shortage of these trained canines, particularly in Eastern Finland

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By Esa Juntunen in Hattula
     
      Woof, woof, WOOF.
      A large dog barks gruffly and insistently, and the sound echoes around the Lehijärvi lake.
     
The Belgian Shepherd Dog Tarzan has got wind of the smell of death and is determined everyone should know.
      It is scratching the gunwale of a small boat, pointing its muzzle towards the south.
      Oi, You, the two-legged one, get over here, it signals to the police officer navigating the boat.
      A diver dragging a disgusting smelly bag is discovered from the water, and Tarzan gets a treat for his pains.
     
This peculiar show is part of the training of dogs used to look for dead bodies.
      In early summer, the form of 14 cadaver dogs is being checked out in the terrain of Hattula near Hämeenlinna. Are they up to the grisly task?
      As there is a shortage of this kind of police dogs in Finland, all dogs will hopefully pass the training.
      ”At least a couple of new dogs would be needed. In addition, it would be good to consider how the dogs are placed on the national map”, says Mikko Maunuksela, the Chief of the Police Dog Training Centre in Hämeenlinna.
     
On the average, cadaver dogs are searching for dead bodies in some part of Finland every two days.
      Typically, a cadaver dog is unleashed if a suicidal person has vanished into the woods or if a fisherman has not come home from checking his nets.
      Especially the notoriously destructive combination of alcohol and massing about in boats may keep police busy on Lake Saimaa, which is why more dogs would be needed in Eastern Finland, Maunuksela observes.
      In practice, the placement of a police dog in a certain area is a complicated business.
      Some police departments avoid dogs, as the long-lasting assignments of cadaver dogs tend to consume resources. The department would rather borrow a cadaver dog from another force if and when the need arises.
      Moreover, the reorganised police administration has not yet made any accurate decision on the number of cadaver dogs required.
     
Let us go back to Lehijärvi, where four training caches have been hidden on the bottom of the lake.
      They are plastic buckets containing a decidedly nasty cocktail of decomposed hair, dead people’s clothes, or autopsy rinsing-water.
      A couple of police boats are slowly cruising around the water system.
      ”Even if the dog is taking a nap in the prow, it can still smell the odours”, says the instructor, Sgt. Jarmo Happo.
      The dogs need a rest on the boat, as their life is hectic. The gigs may be in various parts of the country, lasting for several days each. Between the assignments the dogs work on regular canine patrols.
      ”In a perfect world, these dogs could focus only on their own special field”, Happo contemplates.
     
There are many special fields to choose from: some police dogs are search and rescue dogs, some are used to sniff out illicit substances such as drugs or explosives, while some others are able to detect caches of money.
      And cadaver dogs are trained in detecting the odour of decomposing corpses.
      Among these specialised fields, the work of a cadaver dog is naturally the gloomiest of all, but mercifully the dog himself does not know it.
      For the dog, sniffing for odours from the deceased is just an invigorating outdoor activity.
      ”After the dog has detected an odour, it deserves to be praised, but if the family of the victim is waiting anxiously on the shore, I cannot go rejoicing and making a fuss of him on the lake. Then I just silently give the dog a pat”, Happo notes.
     
The Finnish police have some 300 dogs in service. Most of them are German Shepherds or Belgian Shepherds.
      A total of 14 of these dogs are able to detect the odour of decomposing human bodies.
     
The dogs are trained in Hämeenlinna, and the training of one dog costs approximately EUR 40,000.
      The police dogs have been spread out around Finland.
      The most northern cadaver dog is in Rovaniemi, and the two most southerly animals are based in Helsinki. Principally, the dogs are used in the neighbouring area, but the placements are not binding.
     
Annually, the police dogs have an average of 200 assignments of detecting corpses, while one in three of these leads to some kind of discovery.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.6.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police dog sniffs out cache of cash in Kemi office (8.1.2010)

Links:
  Police Dog Training Centre

ESA JUNTUNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
esa.juntunen@hs.fi