Boy Found Wandering Down North Carolina Road Alone, K-9 Unit 'Reverse' Tracks His Home Nearby

Boy Found Wandering Down North Carolina Road Alone, K-9 Unit 'Reverse' Tracks His Home Nearby

DEPUTIES USED A PIECE OF GAUZE TO PICK UP THE BOY'S SCENT AND WERE ABLE TO TRACE HIS STEPS BACK TO HIS PARENTS' HOUSE NEARBY

A North Carolina K-9 unit employed a rarely used tactic to locate a boy's house after he was found wandering the streets alone.

On July 10, the Union County Sheriff's Office in Monroe, N.C., shared in a statement on Facebook that earlier that week, the department received a 911 call reporting a lost child.

When officers arrived at Waxhaw Indian Trail Road — a suburban, residential area outside of Charlotte and near Monroe where he was walking alone — they were unable to help the boy locate his parents or home because he was autistic and non-verbal, the statement added.

With no leads at first glance, the sheriff's office decided to call in the K-9 unit consisting of Sheriff's Deputy B. Belk and his bloodhound Remi, who in turn tried out a "reverse" track — which Lieutenant Public Information Officer James Maye told CNN is "out of the norm" for a police dog to do.

"Normally, they track from where a person left to try to find where that person is currently. This time we were doing it reverse," Maye told the outlet.

Rather than using the boy's clothing to track him down, as is usual for a police dog, Belk took a piece of gauze and used it to collect a scent from his forearms and the back of his neck.

Remi then got a whiff of the boy's scent and "successfully tracked backwards for approximately a half mile before locating the child's home in a nearby neighborhood," police said.

The sheriff's office added that the boy "was quickly reunited with his loving family." Investigators also said that there were no criminal offenses, as it seemed that the boy had snuck out of the house by himself without his parents realizing.

Maye told CNN that Remi is only 1 year old and has been with the department since he was a puppy, training internally with the sheriff's office canine handler.

Bloodhounds are one of the most common breeds of dogs used as tracking dogs by police. The American Kennel Club states they are "relentless and stubborn" after picking up a scent, and they do "one thing better than any creature on earth: find people who are lost or hiding."

"I've been around for 10 or 12 years. I've never heard anything like this being done," Maye told CNN. "It's not something that these guys train on normally, but it is something they're going to instill in training from here on out."

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