St. Louis County Rescue Squad uses 3 types of dogs to assist with searching: trailing dogs, air-scenting dogs, and cadaver dogs.

Trailing dogs:  Capable of following the scent of a specific person over long distances (up to several miles).  Depending on conditions, these dogs can often find that person even after several days have passed.  To follow an individual, these dogs require a “scent article” to get them started.  A scent article is a piece of gauze which has been placed on something which was last touched by the missing party.  This can be a piece of clothing, the seat of a vehicle, or even a bed or pillow.

Air-Scenting Dogs:  Trained to find and follow human scent, but are not capable of discriminating the specific scent of an individual, like a bloodhound can.  These dogs are quite efficient at locating humans within a search area, they are estimated as being approximately 20 times more effective than a human searcher.  Unfortunately, their inability to distinguish one individual from another sometimes limits their effectiveness in areas contaminated with lots of human activity.  The dogs natural tendency is to follow the freshest human scent, which may or may not be the missing party.

Cadaver Dogs:  Specifically trained to locate the scent of humans remains.  They are used in situations where the missing subject is known or suspected to be deceased. They are able to detect human remains on land, buried, and underwater and are useful in detecting human remains from very recent deaths to deaths that occurred several decades ago, or possibly longer. K-9 Abe and K-9 Otter currently work with the St. Louis County Rescue Squad.