I have an urge to become a cadaver dog handler. 

I'll give you a second to swallow that thought.

This new, maybe bizarre, impulse did not just appear in my head one bright mountain morning over coffee while my two dogs romp in the dewy grass. It slowly trickled into my thoughts as I read What the Dog Knows: Scent, Science, and the Amazing Way Dogs Perceive the World, authored by Cat Warren.

I regularly read books about dogs, their cognition, behavior, diets, emotions, training, and anything else I can get my dog loving paws on. I'm even studying Dog Emotion and Cognition through Duke University's Dognition Lab. I have a strong desire to understand canines as much as humanly possible. And there are still so many human limitations to understanding what the dog knows! This doesn't mean science hasn't tried, they just ignored dogs for a lot of the 20th century and are only now playing fetch-up. 

I bought this book without really realizing it was about working cadaver dogs specifically. Boy was I surprised. I'd exhausted all the dog book options at my local indie bookshop, so I went on Amazon to find some more to try to satiate my curiosity. I loaded a few of the search results into my cart and ordered, not really digging deep into what each book exactly covered, just knowing I wanted more and more knowledge, and it lived inside those newly purchased pages. 

Cat Warren weaves an amazing journey through puppyhood to retirement for working dogs, a world I had little to no knowledge about. Of course, we all know they exist and know not to pet them when we see them in their vests, but does the average person really know what it takes? How many different fields dogs can work in? What kind of training these dogs go through? Or how they settle into their final fields of work? I'd argue not so much, at least I didn't and my whole world has revolved around dogs for the last couple years. Cat beautifully provides these answers. She also gives us an inside look into what cadaver dogs do! 

We've all seen them called into to terrible scenes, 9/11, natural disasters, murders, missing persons searches. I literally thought you just give them a sniff of a personal item and off they go, or so television would have you believe. Like most things on TV, that thought process is unequivocally, incorrect.

Cadaver dogs are searching for chemicals our bodies give off as soon as we die, decomposition has many stages, and these incredible dogs are trained to seek those smells out. Science hasn't determined the exact data on the compounds of death scent, but we know dogs can be trained to find it. We know they know and so we train them and work with them to help bring remains home to the loved ones left behind. Some of these cadaver dogs have even begun searching ancient burial sites, where decomposition long ago faded and now there are only bones where there once were humans. 

As I read deeper into Cat's journey, I found myself feeling overcome with emotion. What an incredible task! What an incredible favor you could do for a family, to find their loved one, and give some, any, even one small answer to what happened. Of course, Cat explains, they don't always find the person they're searching for, but they try. As humans, sometimes, that is all we can do, reach out an arm, maybe attached to one end of a lead, and just try. 

I don't think its something lovely and easy and pretty. I deeply understand it is a messy and tough concept.

Cat doesn't work for law enforcement but she works in a volunteer capacity with law enforcement, when she is needed. It takes consistent and regular training for the dog. They don't just graduate puppy cadaver school and voila! That's it forever. No, Cat has now trained two cadaver dogs and she trains them regularly. Until retirement, they are working dogs and part of that work is the training as well as the actual searches.

There are long days trekking through uncertain terrains and conditions. Dogs can get injured or even sick over time, cancers even, think inhaling chemicals or debris (although, surprisingly, the search dogs from 9/11 didn't develop the respiratory issues so many of our brave first responders did), and hip dysplasia from all the jumping and running. It's not glamorous. It's certainly not CSI: Miami or any of the other types of scripted crime shows. It's real and hard and I'd imagine, more often than not, heartbreaking.

But it's a necessity in this cruel world we humans take up. 

This book gave me a look into a world I knew nothing about, it humanized the concept of a task so grim no one really discusses it. Please think back to the last time you thought of a cadaver dog.

This book shines a light on these brilliant and incredible creatures. By the end of it, I felt as if I knew her first cadaver dog, Solo. I felt as if he were one of my goofy doodles laying across my lap as I devoured page after page. The read is interesting and eye opening. I've found myself describing this book and Cat's work to a number of people since I finished it. I highly recommend it, especially if you're looking to learn some truly unique facts about dog behavior: it's just not something you encounter every day! (Unless you're already a cadaver dog handler, but then, you're already aware of how amazing these working dogs are!)

My current dogs, Duke and Bosco, can and never will be working dogs. They're pampered house dogs. They were never trained for anything other than bonding with me, seeing me as the alpha, walking nicely off leash, playing fetch, and sitting nicely for chunks of chicken I toss their way as I cut up the meat for their meals. 

At this stage in my life, I don't have the time to dedicate to raising, training, and handling a working cadaver dog. I have two children with whom I'm in the thick of social calendars and activities and school. I have a small business in its infancy. But, my kids will grow, and hopefully this little company does too, and one day, when the kids are gone more and more, I will have time on my hands. I will have had years to continue to read up on this field. I will still be fit and active because I already trek through, over, across, up, and down mountains. 

And just maybe, I'll find the perfect place in Colorado to adopt and train a cadaver dog, so I can help bring something, anything, home to the loved ones of a missing person.