If you hear the baying of bloodhounds in the distance, not to worry – it’s not a manhunt, but rather the sheriff’s Bloodhound Academy conducting training.
The Cape May County Sheriff’s Office is holding its annual K-9 Tracking & Trailing seminar from Monday, March 10, through Friday, March 14. This portion of the program’s recertification training will occur in every municipality in Cape May County over the course of the week and will involve agencies from all over the East Coast.
The Sheriff’s Office announced the training to alert the public that there would be police cars and officers – along with their K-9 partners – from Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware in their communities at some point during the week.
“They are training, so please don’t interrupt them or be alarmed,” the Sheriff’s Office’s announcement said.
The office asked the public to share its announcement on social media to let neighbors know what is going on.
Sgt. Dustin Phillips, the Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit supervisor, said there will be more than 50 handlers from eight states taking part in the seminar, which began several years ago, primarily as a bloodhound seminar.
“We now run a bloodhound academy,” Phillips said.
The Sheriff’s Office, and many other agencies, use bloodhounds because of their acute sense of smell, which is due to having an estimated 300 million scent receptors in their noses – many more than human beings or other dogs. This allows the dogs to track with remarkable accuracy.
Over the years, other breeds of dogs, such as German shepherds, Belgian Malinois and Labradors have participated in the training.
According to Phillips, the K-9 teams will begin with classroom training to set the groundwork. After the classroom portion, the teams will be training in both urban settings, such as Rio Grande or Wildwood, and more rural or wilderness areas, such as at Belleplain State Forest.
“We will split into groups, do trails all week,” Phillips said.
He said the Sheriff’s Office runs the longest-running bloodhound academy in New Jersey. In the fall it conducts a 12-week academy run by trainers certified through the National Police Bloodhound Academy.
Phillips said he is nationally certified as a bloodhound trainer. He said the seminars and the academy allow officers to become certified or recertified, or to hone their skills.
“This helps us increase our knowledge, and when we are called into a real-life scenario we can have the confidence we need to do the job right,” he said.
This is crucial because bloodhounds are generally only called in when they are really needed, such as to find an elderly person who wandered away, a missing child or criminals on the loose.
Phillips said the networking the academy provides allows it to network with other agencies, to help train the K-9s in the state and region, and to help the public overall.
Of the 16 municipalities in Cape May County, only the Ocean City, Wildwood and Wildwood Crest police departments have their own K-9s.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
