live searches and cadaver searches. He canât tell me how many searches he has done over his career. I know that before his retirement from the Connecticut State Police in 1990, he used to do at least a hundred searches a year. He doesnât keep count anymore. What would be the point?
âMy next search is the important one.â
5
The Shell Game
 . . . the foundation ceremony can be seen as a recognition that building is both an act of memory and also a fresh start.
âTracy Kidder, House , 1999
Solo stood in Nancy Hookâs training yard, brow wrinkled, staring at five identical white buckets lined up with military precision. One of them had a cadaver âhideâ in itâa little bit of something from somebody who died, or from someone kind enough to donate part of himself to Nancy for a moment like this. One canine trainer shared a portion of his rib, removed in a surgery. As he explained to me years later, he didnât want his own dogs wandering around confused aboutwhat they should be indicating onâthe rib outside the handler or the ribs inside him.
For this particular exercise, Nancy was using one of her soon-to-be-ex-husbandâs wisdom teeth, packed with a bit of bloody gauze. Now nearly six months old, Solo was fifty-five pounds of raw bone and sinew. Few juvenile German shepherds are handsome. Only a handful are well adjusted. He was increasingly impervious to pain, whether receiving it or causing it. Despite my nightmares, Solo wasnât that far outside the shepherd mainstream.
Nancy had given him his first job: to duck his head inside bucket after bucket and figure out which one held the tooth and gauze. This is one method for laying a foundation for a cadaver dog, or any scent-working dog, as it learns to recognize and then signal clearly that it has found what you want it to find. Cadaver, cocaine, gunpowder, heroin. Bed bugs. Some trainers use buckets; others use concrete blocks. More advanced rigs consist of wooden boxes with holes in the top, even springs inside so that a rubber Kong or tennis ball can pop out like a jack-in-the-box for an instant reward. These were early days for me, before I knew the great varieties of boxes available. Everyone has a favorite system, but bells and whistles arenât necessary; perfect timing on the part of the handler is.
On the first run, Solo ducked his head into the fourth bucket, which held the bloody tooth, looked up at me, then ducked his head back in. He had no association with that odor, although it smelled intriguingly different than the smells in the first three buckets. Nancy hissed my cue at me, and I fumbled to give him a liver treat. Solo tried to help himself to the tip of my finger along with the treat. Soon enough, he threw himself into the game. As Nancy switched the position of the buckets, he charged from one to the next, jerking me along, tangling us in his lead, pulling his head out of the âhotâ bucket, staring at me, griping loudly if I didnât reward him quickly. His complaints moved up and down the scales, howls of frustration and delight.
Nancyâs chestnut eyes narrowed as she watched Solo and me perform a bad rendition of the funky chicken with some leash bondage added. I could hear my heart forcing blood through my head. It should have been simple. I was to move just ahead of Solo, using a loose lead, past each bucket, not hesitating, not rushing. With a gracious hand gesture, I was to present the bucket to him. Check here (dogâs head dips into the bucket), check here (dogâs head dips in the next bucket), check here (dogâs head dips and stays). Good dog! Treat! Classic operant conditioning. Solo would start linking cadaver smell with a reward.
Nancy let me keep the treats in my handy belly pack, but it was turning out to be one more thing to manage besides the lead, the dog, the buckets. Oh, and my ego. I was terrible at this. Solo surged from one bucket to
âMy next search is the important one.â
5
The Shell Game
 . . . the foundation ceremony can be seen as a recognition that building is both an act of memory and also a fresh start.
âTracy Kidder, House , 1999
Solo stood in Nancy Hookâs training yard, brow wrinkled, staring at five identical white buckets lined up with military precision. One of them had a cadaver âhideâ in itâa little bit of something from somebody who died, or from someone kind enough to donate part of himself to Nancy for a moment like this. One canine trainer shared a portion of his rib, removed in a surgery. As he explained to me years later, he didnât want his own dogs wandering around confused aboutwhat they should be indicating onâthe rib outside the handler or the ribs inside him.
For this particular exercise, Nancy was using one of her soon-to-be-ex-husbandâs wisdom teeth, packed with a bit of bloody gauze. Now nearly six months old, Solo was fifty-five pounds of raw bone and sinew. Few juvenile German shepherds are handsome. Only a handful are well adjusted. He was increasingly impervious to pain, whether receiving it or causing it. Despite my nightmares, Solo wasnât that far outside the shepherd mainstream.
Nancy had given him his first job: to duck his head inside bucket after bucket and figure out which one held the tooth and gauze. This is one method for laying a foundation for a cadaver dog, or any scent-working dog, as it learns to recognize and then signal clearly that it has found what you want it to find. Cadaver, cocaine, gunpowder, heroin. Bed bugs. Some trainers use buckets; others use concrete blocks. More advanced rigs consist of wooden boxes with holes in the top, even springs inside so that a rubber Kong or tennis ball can pop out like a jack-in-the-box for an instant reward. These were early days for me, before I knew the great varieties of boxes available. Everyone has a favorite system, but bells and whistles arenât necessary; perfect timing on the part of the handler is.
On the first run, Solo ducked his head into the fourth bucket, which held the bloody tooth, looked up at me, then ducked his head back in. He had no association with that odor, although it smelled intriguingly different than the smells in the first three buckets. Nancy hissed my cue at me, and I fumbled to give him a liver treat. Solo tried to help himself to the tip of my finger along with the treat. Soon enough, he threw himself into the game. As Nancy switched the position of the buckets, he charged from one to the next, jerking me along, tangling us in his lead, pulling his head out of the âhotâ bucket, staring at me, griping loudly if I didnât reward him quickly. His complaints moved up and down the scales, howls of frustration and delight.
Nancyâs chestnut eyes narrowed as she watched Solo and me perform a bad rendition of the funky chicken with some leash bondage added. I could hear my heart forcing blood through my head. It should have been simple. I was to move just ahead of Solo, using a loose lead, past each bucket, not hesitating, not rushing. With a gracious hand gesture, I was to present the bucket to him. Check here (dogâs head dips into the bucket), check here (dogâs head dips in the next bucket), check here (dogâs head dips and stays). Good dog! Treat! Classic operant conditioning. Solo would start linking cadaver smell with a reward.
Nancy let me keep the treats in my handy belly pack, but it was turning out to be one more thing to manage besides the lead, the dog, the buckets. Oh, and my ego. I was terrible at this. Solo surged from one bucket to
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