ROCK HILL -- Often you can't find your car keys.
For Lucy the bloodhound, she had the opposite challenge. Sniff a set of car keys on the ground on a chilly morning in York, then find the person who had dropped them and walked about two blocks away. And that's with two people who had been next to each other when the keys were dropped, and then walked away from each other after one block.
"They can do amazing things," said Lt. Patrick Sheridan, a bloodhound handler instructor from the Louisa County Sheriff's Office in Virginia. "We're getting the dog to scent discriminate. She has to pick the scent of the person it's looking for."
With Lucy, who sniffs for the State Law Enforcement Division, and 39 more bloodhounds out and about throughout York County this week, it may appear like a large-scale manhunt. But whether it's a neighborhood in York or the campgrounds of Kings Mountain State Park, it's all part of the five-day annual York County Sheriff's Office Bloodhound Handlers Training Seminar. It's been held here for about 24 years.
Hounds and handlers from sheriff's offices from Berkeley, Chester, Greenville, Horry, Lancaster, Lexington and Pickens counties, along with others from out of state are participating this week. The seminar runs through Dec. 6. It's all to train the dogs to find people who want to be found such as missing children or senior citizens and those who don't want to be found such as crime suspects.
"I'm glad to share the knowledge and get them to where they can go back to their agencies and make them the best teams they can to better serve their communities," Sheridan said.
Whether it's an article of clothing or a more solid item like a set of keys, Sheridan said everyone leaves behind dead skin cells on things they wear and handle. That's what the dogs are sniffing for in their searches.
The training involves a bit of hide-and-seek for the dogs and deputies. The humans have taken to trees crawled under vehicles and hoisted themselves onto rooftops allowing bloodhounds to sniff them out.
At Kings Mountain York County Sheriff's Sgt Kyle Hopper climbed into culvert pipes under a road waiting for his dog on Dec 2 The next day it was Jasper from Camden County Ga Sheriff's Office who sniffed him out starting outside York County Sheriff training facility inside garage where Hopper crawled under boat
Rock Hill Police credited its bloodhound team with Aug 1 apprehension man wanted shooting inside convenience store Police Zamarri Carter shot wounded man Adam Grocery police dog tracked Carter address Carolina Avenue Extension mile away