ATHOL — Kids from the Athol Summer Playground huddled around Petersham Police officer Tim Wright as they reached to pet Briar, a 15-month-old bloodhound from the Northeast Houndsmen.
The Northeast Houndsmen, an organization that trains dogs and their handlers to complete rescues, along with local fire and police departments, visited Athol Community Elementary School late last week to educate kids in the summer program about responders and what they do.
“Some kids have never seen a police cruiser, an ambulance or a fire truck up front, so in the last couple of years we’ve had this put together to bring the local agencies around to let the kids go through the (vehicles) and interact with them, so it is a nice, positive message being sent,” said Athol School Resource Officer Doug Kaczmarczyk.
About 50 kids hopped into the police cruisers, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles from Athol, Phillipston, Orange and Royalston, to gain a better understanding of the role of first responders, from police to firefighters, and the equipment they use in the area. Athol Summer Playground Director Jeff Jobst said this was the third year they organized the event, stating it is a way to keep things more friendly between younger individuals and officers in town.
“I think we need to do much more community building,” he said. “This is a great way for kids to understand the role of the police. The police are on our side, they protect us as law-abiding citizens … that is what we tell the kids.”
Phillipston Police officer William Chapman gathered the children around to demonstrate how bloodhounds track various scents for police departments. Unlike other patrol dogs that police departments use, Chapman said bloodhounds are one-dimensional — they have an incredibly keen sense of smell.
“They are only used for ‘man-trailing’ — we only use these dogs to find people. Even though they are one-dimensional, they are very good at what they do,” he said.
To showcase the dog’s abilities, Chapman picked three kids out of the crowd and then had one of them get their scent on a bottle cap for the dog to later find him.
“(Bloodhounds) have been used for a long time. What make them very good is that they have these big, long ears that bring the scent to their nose, and they have this big beak, which all the scent goes into and they have an organ, which on a human might be the size of the end of your fingernail, but in the bloodhound it is big like a golf ball. All the scent goes in there and they can figure it out and they remember everyday’s scent,” he said.
But, Chapman said, it is easy for items used for tracking to become contaminated. Before the dog sniffed the bottle cap to track the original scent, Chapman had around 20 kids each touch the bottle cap to get their scents onto it to show how easily objects used for tracking can be masked by other scents.
“I am going to have you touch an item, then I am going to eliminate you and the dog is going to know not to go after you. When I give him the item and have him sent off, he is going to go after the last scent that is on that article,” explained Chapman.
Once Chapman had the bottle cap back in his hand, he eliminated the unwanted scents, had General sniff the cap, and then, the dog raced off to try and find the child whose scent filled his nostrils. The dog ran through the parking lot searching for the subject as the kids watched eagerly, until General successfully found the camper across the way.
Kaczmarczyk thanked the local police and fire departments, along with the Athol-Royalston School District, for coming together for the community event.
“The superintendent’s office has been excellent allowing this to happen on the school grounds,” he said.