CAIRO, Ga. (WALB) — The Grady County Sheriff’s Office is introducing a state-of-the-art tool to help find the community’s most vulnerable residents: an 11-month-old scent-discriminatory bloodhound named Abby and specialized scent-preservation kits.

The initiative, spearheaded by Grady County Sheriff Martin Earl Prince, is designed to save critical time when searching for missing children with special needs or elderly citizens with dementia who wander away from home.

“In cases like this, time is of the essence,” Sheriff Prince said. “If we have their scent on hand... that’ll hold this scent. It’s just another way that we’re trying to help our community.”

A personal mission born from tragedy

The sheriff’s push for the program was sparked by a recent tragedy in neighboring Thomas County, where a 5-year-old autistic child wandered off and died about five weeks ago.

For Sheriff Prince, the issue hit close to home.

“I have a great-nephew who is on the spectrum as well,” Prince said. “It’s something that just hit me. It just tears me up... and I just want to be able to provide a service. I have a weakness when it comes to kids, and I want to be able to do something when something like this happens.”

What is ‘scent-discrimination’ tracking?

While many search dogs track general disturbances in the grass or soil left by foot traffic, Abby is specifically trained in pure scent discrimination. This means she zeroes in exclusively on a unique, individual human odor, ignoring all other distracting scents.

To prepare Abby, Lieutenant James Vick trained with her in Tallahassee through a highly specialized program with Scent Evidence K9, founded by former FBI forensic canine worker Paul Coley.

“Pretty much since she was about eight weeks old, she’s been training for scent-discriminatory purposes,” Lt. Vick explained. “We spent a week in downtown Tallahassee doing a lot of trails... anywhere from a quarter mile to a half-mile, four to five times a day.”

Tracking in busy downtown environments prepared Abby for complex real-world situations.

“If you know Tallahassee, it’s an extremely busy area with people, cars, traffic, and everything like that,” Vick said. “Taking [Abby] over there on a trail that’s four to six hours old and still being able to find somebody is pretty phenomenal.”

Vick believes Abby is the only truly scent-discriminatory canine in the immediate South Georgia region.

How the scent kits work

To maximize Abby’s effectiveness, the Sheriff’s Office is partnering with the Grady County School System to distribute scent kits to special education students.

The kits work by taking a special pad and rubbing it on the child’s face, arms, or chest. The pad is then sealed in a glass jar, which preserves the scent for seven to eight years. Each kit also includes a thumb drive containing a pre-filled questionnaire with critical biographical information.

In a crisis, Lt. Vick is completely blind to where the child went.

“I’ll get an area where he may have started at, I’ll cast her out, and once she detects the odor, she’s going to be rocking and rolling,” Lt. Vick said. “And then, she’ll find him.”

‘Abby is going to find him’ — A mother’s peace of mind

Local families are already seeing the impact of Abby’s training. During a demonstration, Abby successfully located AJ, a local child, by tracking scent wiped onto a demonstration pad.

“She did great,” said AJ’s mother, Tiffiny Miller. “They hid AJ. And when she came up, she went to licking AJ. That was a great experience. And with my child, he needs that. He really needed it.”

Miller described the sheriff’s office initiative as a “great idea” that makes her feel much safer as a parent.

“Especially with my child, if he wanders off, they have Abby who can go find him,” Miller said. “And Abby did a good job. She deserved that treat. I would say for all parents, teachers, anybody that can get involved, get involved.”

Grady County Schools Special Education Director Ms. Etheridge expressed strong support for the partnership.

“We are really excited to team up with the Grady County Sheriff’s Department,” Etheridge said. “We think this is a wonderful initiative to protect the children in our community.”

How to sign up

The program will initially focus on students with special needs before expanding. Parents can sign up by contacting their child’s teacher.

To prevent the kits from being misplaced at home, the Sheriff’s Office and school board will securely store and lock them up on-site, ready for immediate use if an emergency occurs.

For the elderly population, including those living with dementia or Alzheimer’s, families can contact the Grady County Sheriff’s Office directly at 229-377-5200 to participate.

The Sheriff’s Office is also hosting an informational program for surrounding counties and municipalities next Tuesday at the Grady County Agricultural Center to share Abby’s tracking services across Southwest Georgia.

Have a news tip or see an error that needs correction? Let us know. Please include the article’s headline in your message.

To stay up to date on all the latest news as it develops, follow WALB on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and X. For more south Georgia news, download the WALB News app and add WALB as a preferred source on Google.

Copyright 2026 WALB. All rights reserved.