If this post has no paragraph separations, please double-click on the title to create a more readable article.
My little sister, Bridget, and I chat every few days. We trade stories and joke as we catch up on the stuff of life. She calls to pester me about coming to visit her in North Texas. I call her to make sure she’s staying out of trouble with the Sheriff and avoiding speeding tickets on 287 South.
This time she had me choking with laughter. She has been keeping a list of handy bits of information she swears that she picks up from Kerrian’s Notebook. This is what she shared tonight. Bridget’s guidelines are based on a few articles on the site, and I’ve included some links in bold so you can see what she read.
Hand guns are not a good choice for self-defense in the middle of the night if the gun is on a closet shelf in a locked box. I keep an axe next to the bed, so I will use my champion axe throwing skills to take out the bad guy.
Bodies in the basement tend to stink up the place. Good thing I don’t have a cellar. Not even a crawl space – in case some nefarious person is looking for a place to hide a body.
My phone is not safe from cloning or hacking in these days of cyber attacks, so I shouldn’t use it to pay for anything. That’s okay, since cash is accepted in most places, and I save a bunch on credit card fees.
The painting is done in the office! Prepping really wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be, mainly because I didn’t have to worry about splatters on the old rug. The result is pretty good if I do say so myself. Sheila just gave me a ‘thumbs up,’ so the job passed inspection.
The guys at the paint store really did a nice job of matching colors to the rug. They’ve been in business for a long time and we’re happy to go there rather than to a big box warehouse. It’s easy to give word-of-mouth referrals to such a reliable, helpful operation.
We had a local flooring company do the new rug. They pulled out the furniture, tore up the old rug, laid the new rug, and moved the furniture back in – all in about three hours. Great crew, well-organized, nice guys.
I hung around most of the time, ‘supervising,’ and told them about ‘Kerrian’s Notebook.’ At first, there were surprised looks when I described some of the pages, but after a while they relaxed and had a few laughs. I even got one of the guys to agree to be rolled up in the old rug so that I could take a picture before it was carted off. Honest – the young man is fine and was only inside the rug for five minutes.
Then, the very night that the rug was put in, a TV show aired that had a body in a rug as part of the storyline – “How to Get Away with Murder.” Great cast, fun basic concept so far. I can’t give anything important away, but the rug pops up more than once.
I started thinking about all the times that rugs have been used as a way to hide bodies in the movies and on TV. Kidnappers carry the victims out of their homes, murderers dispose of bodies, terrorists get rid of the targets… it seems to be an easy way to dispose of (or hide or move) the evidence without raising suspicion even in broad daylight. Or at least delay discovery of the crime.
And, the method is perfectly believable, as long as the deed is carried out correctly.
There are physical realities to be dealt with – rugs are heavy and bulky. There’s a reason that carpeting is sliced up into smaller pieces before the crew carries it out to the curb. It’s more manageable then.
After seeing the guys work with the old carpeting in my house, it makes sense that more than one person should carry the body-in-the-rug on TV or in the movies. One guy or gal at either end of the rug and probably one to support the middle. Bodies flop and bend, so somebody needs to hold up the sagging section if a lightweight area rug is being used. And, keep in mind that most adults weigh anywhere from 120 to 220 pounds. No way is anybody except a body builder going to toss a rug and a body over one shoulder. Too bulky. It’s possible for one person to drag a body-in-a-rug to move it within a house, but if any lifting has to be done, the weight will be a factor and that’s where at least a second person is needed.
Years ago, I watched an average sized woman in a made-for-TV movie, roll up her tall, dead husband in a rug, lift and carry that body all by herself out to a car and put it in the trunk. At no time did she have help. I wanted to throw popcorn at the screen.
The funnier episodes have arms slipping out of a less than well-tied edge, or feet sticking out an end as the partners-in-crime carry the bodies out to the waiting vans – in full view of the neighborhood. What? You think that everybody has a big enough piece of rug to hide a body in, right when they need it?
Would you wonder about the neighbors if you saw a rug being carried to the car? Would you start counting family members?
*I promise, no rugs have been used to hide any actual dead bodies during the writing of this post.
*Many thanks to Blake Lee for ‘posing’ inside the rug. He was a great sport!
Rescue dogs are not to be confused with Search and Rescue dogs.
Rescue dogs have been found in terrible situations by kind people and are taken to safer homes. The dogs have been rescued by the people.
SEARCH and Rescue dogs locate people (whether alive or dead). The people have been rescued (or found) by the dogs.
Search and Rescue (SAR) dogs can be trained for both scenting the air and tracking the scent on the ground, but most dogs are trained to do one or the other. The dogs that are able to do both are more highly sought after by law enforcement agencies and SAR groups.
There are different skill sets for the various kinds of SAR dogs. Here are a few:
Air Scent Dogs The air scent dog finds people by following human scent in the air where it is most intense. They work best in areas that are not public spaces, because this type of dog is not focused on any one person. Wind patterns, street smells, and even air temperature can affect the success of this dog’s search.
Trailing and Tracking Dogs On TV or in the movies, we see dogs sniff for human scent in the air or after sniffing an article of clothing, track the person’s scent through the likely search area. Each person has a unique odor, which leaves a trail behind as we walk through a store, or in the park, or in the gym. When we go outside, that scent can be carried by the breeze for quite a distance. Think you’re not stinky? Or that after a shower, nobody could track your scent? Ha! Your coats, your scarves, your sweaters, your shoes, all hold your particular scent, and you can be followed.
Bocephus, Bloodhound
Tracking/trailing dogs also follow the trail by sniffing for skin cells that people shed naturally. When your skin flakes off, it leaves a trail on the ground (or bushes that you brush up against). Once a tracking dog knows the scent to be followed, it heads on a direct path to the target, and is often used to hunt down escaped convicts.
Bloodhounds have more scent glands than most other breeds, so they are prime candidates for tracking/trailing. Law enforcement officers (or the handler) keeps the dog on a leash, and holds a personal possession belonging to the missing person under his/her nose. The dog focuses on only that scent, despite distractions of all the surrounding aromas of other people or the environment itself. They are known to be highly successful in finding crime victims or missing persons, but with budget constraints, not all jurisdictions have them.
Disaster Dog A disaster dog is trained to find people in wrecked buildings after natural disasters such as earthquakes or landslides. Sadly, their special abilities have been needed after terrorist attacks as well. Their noses zero in on human scent, focusing on people missing and hopefully still alive.
Cadaver Dog A cadaver dog is trained to detect only dead humans, whether above or below the ground. While many dogs can find both dead or alive people, the cadaver dog has a narrower focus. While training, the dogs are introduced to tiny pieces of dead bodies or even blood droplets.
Water Search Dog A trained water search dog can find people in or under the water, but their focus is on the smell of body gases that naturally come from cadavers in the water. The dog handler usually waits on shore while the dog does his/her job, then divers are dispatched if a scent is detected.
Avalanche Dog Avalanche search dogs are capable of identifying human scent in or under snow after an avalanche. They have been known to find people alive, buried as much as 15 feet below the surface.
Search and Rescue dogs are highly trained and in great demand, as more jurisdictions discover their very real contribution to law enforcement and wilderness/disaster rescue. It takes years to train them to do their own specific job and while training, most live/stay with their handlers. The special bond created between handler and dog increases the success of the partnership during their missions.
There are national organizations that supervise the training and certification of SAR dogs and their handlers. Not just anyone with a German Shepherd or a Bloodhound (and other breeds as well) can join a search for a missing person or for a cadaver. It takes special training to cover a possible crime area thoroughly and efficiently, without compromising it or the evidence found there.
The dogs must pass rigorous certification tests, to make sure that they follow directions easily and are not bothered by the harshness of conditions they may face. Remember the collapse of the towers on September 11th? Conditions were unstable as well as dangerous, and the SAR dogs were challenged as seriously as the men and women responders at the site.
Both handlers and dogs are tested during the certification process.
Here are some of the skills the examiners look at for the dogs:
Dog Skills
Did the dog indicate the initial direction of travel?
Did the dog stay focused on the search?
Is the dog easily refocused after being distracted?
Does the dog scent discriminate?
Does the dog search effectively (within 100 meters of track, on all legs)?
Did the dog make a self-directed find on the subject?
Did the dog demonstrated its final response and direct the handler to the subject?
Did the dog identify the correct subject and only the correct subject?
Could your pet do any of the above, consistently and on demand? Our Irish Setter, Hammett, is a great dog, but his nose is focused on dinner and his treats. He would have to have been trained from the time he was a puppy to behave otherwise.
For more information about the various Search and Rescue operations around the USA, check out these sites:
