Samantha Clark

Samantha Clark has a passion for bloodhounds and their amazing capacity to follow a scent. She has little time or patience for the two-legged, but plenty for the four-legged.

Sam has always enjoyed watching dogs work and was particularly interested in breeds that can track a scent. In 1991 she bought her first bloodhound to hunt human scent as part of a sporting event. ‘Hunting the clean boot’ is the term used when dogs track a human by following someone who has set off some time in advance without pulling a drag or using artificial scents. It is in the bloodhound’s nature to track and takes hours of training to get them to follow the human aroma rather than the confusing overlaying smells of rabbits, pheasants and other small mammals – or other humans.

Sam also began receiving calls from frantic dog owners, asking if her bloodhounds could help track down their missing pets. She always had to disappoint and explain that her hounds were trained only to track humans. Sam then saw bloodhounds trained as canine search dogs in the USA, where they have a very high success rate in tracking and reuniting lost pets. She decided to train one of her bloodhounds for this specific purpose in the UK. Most bloodhounds can only be trained to follow one scent so Sam’s dogs almost exclusively either track humans or dogs.

In 2008 Sam started informally helping people to search for their missing dogs using her hounds. She very quickly became inundated so she and some like-minded friends formed the charitable group K9 Search Dogs to promote the service and encourage people to get involved. There are now six volunteer members including handlers and fundraisers covering Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. Sam’s first hound, Forager was an excellent tracker and won a PDSA commendation for his work in finding lost dogs; she hopes her newest recruit Jaunty will be a worthy successor.  She and Jaunty regularly go out to search for lost dogs and Sam is rightly proud of the success rate of all of the K9 dogs, although so much depends on a fresh trail. The sooner the bloodhounds can begin tracking a recent scent, the higher the likelihood of a positive outcome. Sam also advises owners to bring an item of bedding, a towel or clothing belonging to the missing dog as an aid to her bloodhounds.

When I asked Sam if she would recommend bloodhounds to people thinking of a pet, she said that they dribble, moult, chew excessively, are oblivious to personal space and take up an enormous amount of room, but otherwise they are very affectionate and, of course, excellent trackers!

Nichola Williams

The charity K9 Search Dogs is financed by donations and fundraising; there is no charge for a call out to search for a missing dog and the search handlers are all volunteers. For more information visit www.k9searchdog.org or contact 07721 597926/01566 783233.