Bones

said. “I suppose the cops can’t just let every clown who thinks Fido is pretty clever put his pet on a leash and come on down to snoop around.”

“Right. Fido and his master are likely to destroy evidence — not to mention dozens of other legal and health problems. Search dogs are working dogs, and the handlers and their dogs all go through lots of training. It’s ongoing, and requires years of work — but it’s more than work. It’s a bond, it’s learning to read your dog, it’s — well, it’s hard to explain. Bool and Bingle work differently.”

“Different in what ways?”

“Bool needs to be pre-scented — given something of the victim’s to smell. He tracks that scent, nose to the ground. Bingle is primarily an air-scenting dog, and he is specifically cadaver trained.”

“Which means?”

“Every individual human being gives off a unique scent — with the possible exception of identical twins. Otherwise, we each have our own. We give off this scent because every minute, every living person sheds an estimated forty thousand dead skin cells, called rafts, that carry bacteria and give off their own one-of-a-kind vapor.”

“Even if you bathe and use deodorant?”

He smiled. “No getting away from it. You can mask it from your fellow humans, but not the dogs.”

“Okay, but what if I’m not near the dog?”

“Let’s go back to the rafts. Every minute, these tens of thousands of rafts come off us like a cloud, surrounding us and drifting away from us as we move, with the heaviest concentration very near us. As we move, it spreads into a wider and wider cone — that’s known as a scent cone. As they drift, some of these rafts will catch on other objects, especially plants.”

“And Bingle smells the rafts?”

“Yes. A dog’s nose is literally a million times more sensitive than ours for some scents. And it’s thought that their brains process scent information in a different manner than our brains do.”

“So he can follow this cone of scent?”

“Yes. He’s also trained to find the scent of human blood, body fluids, tissue, skeletal remains, and decomposing remains. And he can find any of these things in minute amounts.”

“I know I’m going to hate myself for asking this, but how were you able to train him to find bodies — to teach him what a dead body smells like?”

“In this line of work, I have access to bones and other biological material from cadavers. But some trainers use a synthetic chemical that’s made just for the purpose of training these dogs.”

I couldn’t hide a look of disbelief. “Fake cadaver smell?”

“Yes. Different formulas for different levels of decay.”

“Not the kind of thing you’d want to accidentally spill on your carpet, I suppose.”

He laughed. “No, but Bingle might not mind. Dogs aren’t bothered by what we think of as horrible odors. To them, the worse it smells, the more interesting it is. And for Bingle, that smell is associated with praise — finding it brings a reward.”

“But even decaying bodies must smell — well, unique, right? Because of the varying conditions they are left in, if nothing else — out in forests, in deserts, underwater—”

“Sure, to some extent. He’s not trained for one smell alone, of course. Best of all, Bingle has a couple of years of experience, so he knows what it is he’s looking for. Bingle’s nose is sensitive enough to find a single drop of blood. You let him sniff a car, he can tell you if a body has been in its trunk.”

“My husband and his partner made Bingle sound as if he were Super Dog.”

“Oh no. He has his limitations. Conditions have to be good for him to search, and there are things that can throw him off. But his biggest limitation is talking to you right now.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled. “If I could understand everything he tries to say to me, we’d get better results. Lord, who knows what he could accomplish? More than once, I’ve looked back and realized that I just failed to read him; he was trying to show me where to find something, but I insisted that we do things my way. There are times when I can see he’s frustrated, trying to get things across to his dumb handler.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “you two seem to have a pretty good partnership.”

“Well, partner,” he said to Bingle, who immediately became alert, “ready to have another go at it?”

Bingle got quickly to his feet, but continued to watch David with anticipation.

“?Buscalos!” David said, giving the same hand signal he had before. “Find ’em!” The dog immediately went back to work.

David worked him for another twenty minutes, and again provided water and rest. On the fourth round of work, the dog’s weaving pattern suddenly narrowed. He was still moving side to side, but faster and faster. He stopped and looked back at David, his ears forward, the look intent.

“That’s an alert,” David said excitedly. “Whatcha got?” he said to Bingle. “Show me where it is. Muestrame donde esta. Sigue — keep going.”

Bingle moved off again, nearly in a straight line.

“How did you know it was an alert?” I asked.

“I know him,” David said simply, hurrying after him. “When his ears are straight forward like that, it’s as if he’s checking in with me. I’m part of his pack. He’s asking me, ‘Can’t you smell that?’ ” He kept watching the dog as he spoke, then said, “He’s got something. Look — the scent has caught on the grass.”