Cadaver dogs are trained to specifically find the odor of decomposing human remains.

Cadaver dogs are trained to ignore live human scent and animal scent, and only indicate on human remains.  These dogs can be used to find human remains related to crime scenes, old missing persons cases and small scent sources.

Cadaster

Cadaver dogs that have special training in the context of disaster scenes and debris (cadaster dogs) can also be used to locate human remains following a natural or manmade disaster. Illinois Search Dogs routinely cross-trains their cadaver dogs to be operational as cadaster dogs as well, to compliment our disaster dog teams.

Water

A specialty subset of cadaver dogs is water cadaver dogs. Similar to cadaver dogs, these dogs have been trained to find the odor of decomposing human remains. However, water cadaver dogs have been specifically trained to locate and indicate the source of the odor to assist divers in a more directed and speedy recovery of a drowning victim.

How They Are Trained

Like all search dogs, cadaver dogs go through extensive training before they can become certified and operational. Cadaver dogs are first trained to recognize a wide spectrum of odors associated with human remains, depending on their specific use. Cadaver dogs for use in a disaster situation focus on more recent decomposition odors, while cadaver dogs that work with law enforcement are also trained to recognize older decomposition odors and smaller or residual odors. Only actual human remains are used to train the dogs, no pseudo scent is used in the training process. All K-9s are first taught to give a trained final response or indication upon detection of the odor. They are taught to only give this response when they locate the strongest source of the odor. A large amount of time is spent on making sure that the indication is solid before the K-9 is ever taught to actually search for the odor in a scenario-based problem. Cadaver dogs that are trained in water recovery are taught to give this final indication while working from a boat on a body of water.

Qualifications:

See SAR K-9 Standards with the International Police Work Dog Association

Some Uses of a Cadaver Dog:

• Locating a drowning victim in water
• Locating human remains in a missing persons or homicide case
• Locating human remains in the event of a natural or man-made disaster