A Pasco County Eagle Scouts project is expected to help the sheriffs office better train its K9s for search and rescue missions.

Ishaanth Ravichandran, a junior at J.W. Mitchell High School and member of Boy Scout Troop 77, spent more than a year building wooden training boxes to replace the aging plastic ones used by the Pasco County Sheriffs Office.

Its really great. It was a long process. Actually, over a year of work put into it, Ravichandran said.

The new boxes are designed to help K9s track live human scent during search and rescue operations or when pursuing suspects.

Live human odor is what they are looking for with these boxes. It allows us to conceal the subject, and they have to use their nose versus their eyes to locate who they are looking for, said Deana Hudgins, K9 train

See Full Page