Officers are training Rosie the bloodhound to help find and reunite missing
persons with their loved ones
Hoag approaches preventative health care from all angles, taking in the
depth of it, the breadth of it and – most recently – the scent of it.
Last year, Hoag made headlines when it donated 4-month-old bloodhound Rosie
to the Santa Ana Police Department. The scent-tracking canine would be
trained over the next 11 months to help officers find suspects as well
as to locate “critical missing.”
“‘Critical missing’ is what we call children under 12,
people with dementia or Alzheimer’s, or those who need medication
who may have wandered from the home,” said Officer Bob Guidry, Rosie’s
human partner. “Bloodhounds have 300 million scent receptors, more
than any other dog breed, and Rosie is trained to find missing people
even when the tracks are old.”
Hoag’s Department of Community Health donated the $15,000 to purchase
and train Rosie for the police department. If the connection between health
care spending and a police dog is not immediately apparent, consider that
the American Alzheimer’s Association estimates 60 percent of adults
with dementia will wander, and another study out of Virginia found that
20 percent of Alzheimer’s patients who wandered were later found
dead. The faster law enforcement is able to find a wandering individual,
the better the outcome.
Santa Ana PD alone receives 150 critical missing calls each year. Rosie’s
job is to find these people quickly and safely.
“For us, this is a public health intervention. When people with autism
or dementia or other cognitive disabilities get lost, it can have serious
health ramifications,” said Michaell Rose, director of Community
Benefit at Hoag.
“If we can prevent a tragedy or prevent people from ending up in
the emergency department, if we can save just one person, it will all
be worth it.”
The idea to fund a bloodhound came from Rose and her husband, Santa Ana
PD Sgt. James Rose, who oversees the department’s K9 program. A
year ago, Rose’s mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, wandered
away from home. She was found several hours later, many miles from home.
She was not injured, but Rose said the experience made her wish the department
had a bloodhound to help find her mother sooner.
“I don’t know how she crossed streets and wandered so far in
the middle of the night without any accidents,” Rose said. “It
would be really nice to have a bloodhound in every city, so that a parent
of a child or a caregiver could have access to this lifesaving service.”
Rosie joined Officer Guidry’s family in November of 2017. After undergoing
an extensive training program (and chewing up everything she could get
her mouth on), Rosie was only very recently certified for deployment.
Officer Guidry said he is continuously amazed at her tracking skills and
has a tremendous amount of confidence in her abilities.
“Before we track, the first thing I do is put a harness on her. That’s
when she knows it is time to work. It’s amazing to see her body
behavior change. I give her the scent item, she snaps her head down and
boom, she’s on it,” Officer Guidry said.
“Rosie will reduce manpower it takes to locate people, and help us
locate a person a lot sooner. We really appreciate Hoag donating Rosie.
This has created a great opportunity for the community.”