How do search and rescue dogs find people?

Dogs are able to track and locate disaster victims using their amazing sense of smell. Endowed with about two hundred million scent receptors in their noses, as compared to the five million or so scent receptors in human noses, dogs can sort out smells about ten thousand times better than you can. And the longer the nose, the better it works.

On the job, search and rescue dogs use two different search modes. One is air scenting, which involves the dog holding its head up as it works off-lead, trying to catch the victim’s scent in the air and following it to the source. The other method is ground tracking. A ground-tracking dog sniffs out a specific scent, as it works on-lead with his handler.

– Dr. Larry McDaniel, DVM for the “Purina® Animal Instincts” Podcast Series

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