The one thing the article doesn't address is
how far the body needs to be from the dog. Clearly, there's an outer limit. 15 feet underground is impressive, but the dog was led to the area where searchers hoped to find remains.
Cadaver-scent behaves differently in various temperatures (it's cooler under ground, scent lasts longer). Here's a
somewhat longer look at how the dogs work:
https://digitalcommons.library.umai...&httpsredir=1&article=1024&context=ant_facpub
Very well trained dogs are 95% effective, but there is very little scientific norming of dogs (some are only 30% effective - to find out, a lab has to investigate using controlled conditions, not every cadaver dog has been through that process). The effectiveness rate refers to finding cadaverine on carpet samples in a closed space. Real world effectiveness is less.
Wind, heat and humidity affect the process (heat and dryness make it more difficult for the dog). In fact, if the dogs have to pant, they cannot also smell at the same time.
As the article above states, scent from a cadaver form a cone-shape (if not a lot of wind). With buried bodies, the scent rises and pools at the top of the resulting cone - which is why the dogs can smell it. If it's very warm or hot, air rises more quickly and the top of the cone is way above the dog's head and if it's windy, then it is dispersed.
None of this works if the dog is not taken to a place near where the body is. In Philip's case, the original trail that SAR teams thought he was on is likely not the trail he took (his friend led the search this weekend - in a different place, but they are not SAR people and do not have a trained cadaver dog).
The search already done is a "non-focused speculative search" where the investigators have no clue where the body might be - it's potentially hundreds or even thousands of acres. If there were clear boundaries as to where Philip might be, it would be a Type II search, this is a Type III - the most difficult kind.
In this search, some of the places that Philip may have gone were declared off limits by "grumpy" property owners. This is all notable, because Philip is very likely either on the new trail area or near it or perhaps he crossed a fence into private property (which some have said is common enough to get to certain parts of this area).
The article above talks about what happens when an area is too large and the dog works hard, but finds nothing. The dog begins to lose interest/become bored. If Phil's body were located downhill from a ridge and in some brush/area with trees, that area would need to be carefully searched - and there's a lot of that type of terrain there.
Since the new search is in a different area, I would hope that somehow, they could bring in a cadaver dog for that area. However, I do believe this means that the SAR search must resume.
At the very end of that article, it discusses a known case where there were dead bodies that humans could smell - but the dog did not alert on the bodies (only on a piece of fabric and some hair from one of the bodies). Outdoor searches, in short, are complicated by many factors and some researchers think cadaver dogs are only about 30% effective in Type III kinds of searches (where the boundaries of the search are vague).
So I personally believe Phillip is likely to be near where he said he was going to be.
I hope they can bring back the cadaver dogs to the other areas (including the private property) where they've been searching.
