Cairn Canine Detection

05/06/2024

Guy Mansfield doing what he does so well.

05/01/2024

Meet Chyana Marie Sage, my new friend. Our paths were pre-destined to cross. We have a common passion: to share the truth, to bring healing and action to the dark history of Native American boarding schools in North America and the resultant intergenerational trauma experienced in tribal communities.

One magical evening a few days ago we shared our personal stories - some deeply touching - around a mesmerizing fire right next to the Colorado River at the base of Grand Canyon (we were on Whitewater rafting trip with an awesome group of people). Chyana Marie and I discovered we both are authors and have shared purpose. As a Cree and Métis gifted writer and recognized poet who has experienced inter generational trauma up close and personal, Chyana Marie is uniquely positioned to tell the story of her family and others. She makes magic with words. Her book Soft as Bones is now available for pre-order (any places where people usually buy books).

Chyana Marie and I were meant to meet. I sense amazing things will come from our budding friendship.

04/19/2024

Guy and I did our two 90-minute presentations on Probability Guided K9 Searching of Cold Cases and Old Burials today. We had a mix of law enforcement, search managers and K9 handlers at both sessions and celebrated with Margeritas and dinner with a bunch of folks from SARDAV, Victoria BC. We are honored to have been selected to present at the 2024 Missing and Unidentified Persons Conference in Las Vegas. Learnt a lot. Now off for our continued road trip with our off-road trailer. Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion national parks next.

04/09/2024

While Guy Mansfield and I are attending and presenting at the Missing and Unidentified Persons Conference in Las Vegas he is also spearheading a presentation at the 2024 William Syrotuck symposium on Advanced Search Theory. Topic: planning an Evidence Search Using A Probability Mosaic #

04/02/2024

We - founders and board members of Cairn Canine Detection (CCD) - also remain committed members of Cascadia Search Dogs (CSD). I was a co-founder and first President of Cascadia Search Dogs and passed the rein to new leadership in 2022, but am still on the board and actively involved. I am now the proud President of CCD. My strongest leadership traits is as a visionary, as someone that creates and inspires. Grateful to be a part of two exciting journeys. Suzanne

03/26/2024

We are grateful to be working with John Horne to find the unmarked graves of many of the former patients of Northern State Hospital. K9s Belle and Kili spent some time searching in a very overgrown area with suspected burials just yesterday. .state.hospital

03/24/2024

Day 1 - check. We work hard day time and eat well in the evening. The dogs have all crashed after a lot of intense sniffing on this project looking for indigenous children in unmarked graves at the first Native American on-reservation boarding school in our nation.

03/21/2024

It is coming up. Guy Mansfield and I are honored to be presenters at this annual conference attracting an international audience. Here we come Las Vegas. Our presentation: “Probability Guided K9 Searching for Cold Cases and Unmarked Burials”

03/21/2024

This is great news for cold cases in Washington.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the new funding will supplement existing state and federal DNA testing resources so cases can be resolved more quickly.

03/20/2024

Dogs and people doing good things. We are grateful to have been able to support K9FF as contractors on this three-day K9 HRD historical survey project. Dogs and handlers got some well deserved sleep upon return home. Very meticulous work. dogs

03/12/2024

Believe it or not, this is exciting stuff for those of us that train detection dogs and are committed odorant geeks.

Since the advent of the Universal Detector Calibrant (UDC) by scientists at Florida International University in 2013, this tool has gone largely unrecognized and under-utilized by canine scent detection practitioners. The UDC is a chemical that enables reliability testing of biological and instrumen...

03/11/2024

Our Board member Sally Olsen with K9 Torr passed a third party HHRD (historical human remains detection) certification with K9FF this weekend. Big congrats. Well done. Sally and Torr will deploy on their first Cairn Canine Detection historical project in a couple of weeks when we return to Fort Simcoe, the first on-reservation Native American boarding school in the US.

03/08/2024

K9s Belle and Kili are getting prepared for an out-of-state historical HRD search next week. This is one of our most awesome pioneer cemeteries overlooking the Salish Sea.

02/28/2024

Well this is a good trick when we try to read headstones!

02/26/2024

Got to keep perishable skills like map and compass fresh. We never know when technology will fail us.

Last weekend one of our members, John, organized a map and compass training day. We invited some guests and had a nice turn out. It was a good day to work on those skills that can decay if not practiced!

02/25/2024

Today Kili and I got to spend quality time with my Cascadia Search Dogs teams to discuss and train on shaping, markers, reinforcers, training loops and more with Jo Huxel. It was great fun to have several young puppies. All of a sudden we have three puppies amongst us: Welcome Cider, Sage and Ziggy..

02/14/2024

Northern State Hospital has such an interesting and often tragic history. We are grateful to be a small part of finding answers with our historically trained dogs.

02/13/2024

This week our historically trained human remains detection dogs spent another day supporting the Seabeck Cemetery Restoration Project

01/30/2024

Action photos from today’s Cairn Canine Detection work at the old Northern Hospital Cemetery. We were delighted to have John Horne, the overall project manager of this initiative, visit with us. Check out his Facebook Northern State Hospital page.

01/30/2024

We had four certified Historical HRD K9 teams deployed on our Northern State Hospital Project locating unmarked graves in the old cemetery today (and two teams in training). Find out more about the history of this old psychiatric hospital and our involvement in this Seattle Times article https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/northern-state-hospital-records-solve-mystery-of-family-members-graves/

01/26/2024

Today some of our dog teams had the opportunity to support K9FF on a community service project locating historical indigenous unmarked graves and scattered remains. Kili’s Trained Final response on the photo turned out to be about six feet away from where a skull was found many years ago.

01/11/2024

Welcome to Cairn Canine Detection. We are a 501C dedicated to using highly specialized human remains detection dogs and search planning tools to locate and document human remains. We often work closely with law enforcement, forensic experts, archaeologists and other stakeholders to gather information, analyze data and develop search plans. We maximize the chances of locating old human remains including scattered bones and burials while providing crucial support in investigations and answers for families and communities. Our work typically fall into one of two categories: 1) Old cold cases, or 2) Historical searches.

Our K9 teams are generally certified in both search and rescue Land Human Remains Detection (including crime scene) and Historical Human Remains Detection.

To meet our Board members and find out about some of our current community service projects follow this link to our web site: https://suzanneelshult.com/cairncaninedetection/