Omaha daily bee., 1903-01-17
DOGS TRAINED TO HUNT MEN
Points on the Education OF BLOOD
hounds Employed to Track
Criminals.

The FIRST attempt to track a criminal in
the city Of Washington with bloodhounds,
relates the Washington Post. was made
recently when Detective Trumbo set
his two hounds in pursuit Of the
murderer of Mrs. Kate Jordan in Ana
costa, a few hours after the crime. In
Washington It has been thought that blood
hounds would be Of little service. and II is
found that they can pick up the scent on
asphalt pavement only with the greatest
difficulty. Conditions in the Anacostia case.
however, were different. The hunt for the
murderer was going on with promise OF
swift success until a fall Of snow covered
the trail so effectively as to make it i'm
possible, after the scent had been lost on
one side Of the river. to pick It up on the
other.
Detective Trumbo's bloodhounds are ugly
animals. but their looks belle their intelli-
gence, as we'll as their aristocratic lineage,
for which their owner prizes them. The
dogs, now grown TO be large, we're puppies
that he slid into his overcoat pockets when
he bought them down in Tennessee. Now
they are 9 months old and have graduated
from a course OF education in Washington,
The first thing they learned was to re-
spond to their names-Raymond and Mare
and then to a peculiar whistle that the
detective composed for the purpose. After
ward came a course Of kindergarten work
in the ordinary dog play Of locating things
by scent.
The dogs, after sport with a ball. were
taught to hunt for it. Name from the
start seemed to have the keener 'olfactory
sense, while her companion was inclined to
become tired after the least work. After
the hounds had been educated to locate
4 i.
were allowed to smell OF an unfamiliar OBJ
ject and then told to hunt it. They became
proficient in returning the objects of their
quest to their master. To teach them this
took weeks OF patient toll. 1t completed
their grammar school course.
Finally they were taken out in the coun,
try for college education. They were held
while Detective Trumbo would take a run
off out CT sight. 1t was easy for them to
follow one with whom they were so IA
miiiar as their master, especially as the
scent was in the open air. Their final
lessons came in their being allowed to fol-
low coIored men hired to travel across the
country.
When the dogs were permitted TO follow
human beings they seemed to be IN their
element. They have been very accurate In
following the exact path taken by men.
On one trial the trail led along a creek
bounded on both sides by steep banks. The
man pursued was fully an hour ahead OF
the dogs and their master.
Suddenly, as the dogs we're following the
scent, they left the creek and started up
the bank, to the CONSERVATION OF Detective
Trumbo, who had ordered the fugitive"
to follow the creek. The hounds went to
the summit of a bluff, but returned to the
creek again. When the man was found De-
tective Trumbo asked him why he went W
the blum. A t first he denied II, but, after
thinking, said: "Oh, yes; l went up there
to tie my shoe"
Christmas eve. when the dogs were taken
to the scene OF the Anacostia murder, the
work OF tracking men was not new to them.
They obtained a scent of the criminal from
a chair on which he had been seated, and
followed his track directly to the river.
The ancestors of the dogs are said to be
the c-oldest-nosed inbred breed in the
United States. Last July their mother,
owned by J. W. Mccall of Knoxville, Tenn.
earned 81 900 reward by running down a
criminal eighty-three miles away and on !
track twenty-eight hours old. The sire OF