The Senior Resource Alliance has provided a second trained bloodhound to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
And the alliance is also providing Scent Preservation Kits that could help the dogs find missing children or seniors with dementia who have wandered off.
That's because, if the bloodhound is going to find the missing person, it needs the right scent to start with.
At a press conference Thursday, Orange County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit commander Capt. Bruce McMullen said getting that good scent can be a problem -- the item a family provides could be contaminated by other smells or other people.
Having a 100% accurate sample can help a lot. And that's where the scent preservation kits come in.
"The people we want to receive these kits are anyone who has an at-risk family member that may wander, an Alzheimer's patient, handicapped child," McMullen said, "anyone who's prone to wander."
For those families, the Sheriff's Office has 1,500 free kits -- including thumb drives for photos and other information -- at the Central Operations building on Colonial Drive. And it plans to have them at substations, too.
SRA President and CEO Karla Radka says 5,000 kits are being provided in four Central Florida counties.
The kits are supplied by Scent Evidence K9.
