Welcome the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office newest deputies to help keep residents safe – Doc and Luke, a pair of nine-month-olds.
And while they look innocent chasing a ball or looking cute, they mean business.
The bloodhounds are the newest members of the local police K-9 unit, trained to find missing persons, and are part of a program built to find the people faster.
The Sheriff’s Office has partnered with the Senior Resource Alliance and Scent Evidence to expand the K9 unit and find loved ones, especially those who may get lost easier like children, senior citizens and those with cognitive disabilities, faster. The partnership comes with 750 “scent preservation” kits that residents can sign up to receive. They include a special cloth that a person wipes on their body, then encloses in an air-tight jar, which has a place for personal information. Should that person go missing, the K9 unit can get the jar, let the dogs smell the scent, then begin working to find them.
“It’s going to enhance our capabilities for missing persons,” Sheriff Marcos Lopez said. “This is another good tool and organization to partner with to make that much faster.”
“Bloodhounds are especially good at tracking at long time intervals,” Sheriff’s Office K9 Sgt. Michael Melendy said. “Scent preservation is a new way of collecting scents for the dogs. It gives first responders a new way of tracking loved ones.
Doc and Luke just finished their tracking training this year, and have already assisted in the rescue of two children ages 11 and 3 in Leon County in the Panhandle. The dogs, and a year’s worth of food through Osceola’s Department of Health, were donated by the Senior Resource Alliance.
“This year, we’ve invested $5 million ensuring senior remain safe living in our community with dignity and respect,” Senior Resource Alliance CEO Karla Radka said. “This partnership is an incredible opportunity to continue that effort and mission. We are happy to partner with organizations with the highest level of service to citizens.”
Scent Evidence K9 CEO Paul Coley said the jar is like “a bottle of perfume” for the dogs, and the individual preparedness kit benefits the families, who often have a hard time giving police proper identification during traumatic times.
This is the second program proactively put in place to care for those who could get lost easily. Project Lifesaver was implemented in 2021 and provides those vulnerable people with cognitive disabilities with a waterproof personal transmitter to wear. It an individualized tracking signal that can be quickly tracked.
Lopez said about 200 people were reported missing to his agency last year.
To get one of the scent preservation kits, call the Sheriff’s Office at 407-348-1190.
