I am a Fugitive from a Tennessee Bloodhound
by Joe Tarr
I don't hear any barking, just the trickling of a creek a few yards to my left and the occasional rustling of the forest canopy above. Crouching against a moss-covered giant hemlock, my butt is moist from the dirt. Ants crawl over my feet and chiggers bite the skin around my ankles, but my efforts to shoo them away are kept to a minimum out of fear that the motion will give me away.
I know he's out there, looking for me. Or rather, sniffing for me. He's nine years old and his name is Big Boy. And he has the distinction of being the number one bloodhound for the state's Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex. His nose has helped find escaped murderers and lost children alike. Right now, he's looking for me. I imagine his keen nose rising to the breeze, picking out my own peculiar stink from that of various deer, hikers, dogs and other warm-blooded creatures. Shivering slightly, I huddle down closer to the tree and try not to move.
Well, OK, I was much more terrified of rattlesnakes I'd been warned about than I was of Big Boy, who was chasing me for sport and practice. Big Boy does what bloodhounds have been doing for centuries—track people. Brushy Mountain has had bloodhounds ever since the prison was built, more than a century ago. At one time, select inmates would care for and train the dogs, but the practice was stopped in the mid-'60s because those inmates were ostracized by the rest, according to prison spokeswoman Debbie Williams.
Brushy Mountain used to be the state's maximum security prison, but that changed in 1982, when it was turned into what is mainly a processing unit. The recently convicted are sent here until the authorities decide where they'll serve their sentences. There's also a maximum security unit, which the employees somewhat boastfully say is reserved for the worst of the worst of its prisoners. It can house up to 92 inmates, who spend 23 hours a day alone in their cells (the other hour is spent in a little cage outside, where they can bounce a basketball). They're never in contact with other inmates, and they get one phone call a month.
Nearby is the minimum-security Morgan County Regional Correctional Facility. The inmates there work out in the community or on the prison grounds. The dogs are kept at the Morgan site. Altogether, the two prisons can hold almost 1,600 inmates.
Over the years, the bloodhounds have helped track various escapees, most famously when they found James Earl Ray in June 1977 some 55 hours after he escaped. Big Boy tracked an escapee about a year ago, finding him nine hours after the man fled. The dogs are also called on to help find lost hikers or children.
At 9, Big Boy is old for a working bloodhound. Most dogs are retired after about 6 or 7 years, says Shawn Phillips, one of two K-9 officers who care for and train the prison's pups.
Originally bred to hunt game, bloodhounds began to be used to find humans in the 16th century. Training starts at around two months old, and if the dog has the gift, it'll be able to start working at about a year old, Phillips says. Brushy Mountain now has five dogs, four of which are pure-bred bloodhounds. The prison recently got a mixed breed dog. "Most bloodhounds, they're high maintenance," Phillips says. "The pups are hard to raise. If you get a little bit smaller dog, it's lower maintenance."
Included in the maintenance required of the dogs—who grow to about 150 pounds—is a twice a week toothbrushing. Phillips is a hulk of a man with a buzz cut and a goatee and mustache. He regularly drops large gobs of chewing tobacco spittle onto the ground or (when inside) into a nearby wastebucket. He's been working with the dogs for about three years now, at the invitation of his superiors who knew he hunted and liked the outdoors. Since the dogs are bred to track, the training isn't complicated. It involves lots of practice and getting to know each dog's habits and mannerisms—when it's lost a trail and when it's on it. "The hardest thing to learn is to trust them dogs," Phillips says.
What the dog is sniffing when it tracks is a little hard to understand. "Your body is basically losing skin cells all the time, and it emits an odor, an odor we can't detect, which is probably a good thing. Your scent comes off and just falls to the ground, basically," Phillips says.
"People think they're washing their scent away when they shower. You've just made it easier for the dog. What happens when you scrub away at your skin, your body's trying to fix itself, and it gives off an odor," he says.
Most bloodhounds are not vicious. Often when they find the person they've been tracking, they'll greet him with sloppy kisses instead of barks (notorious droolers, bloodhounds can throw saliva gobs 20 feet with the shake of their head).
"Elvis—he's an exception to the rule," Phillips says of the prison's number two dog, a gift from the Memphis Police Department. "He don't like people. He's contrary and hateful. Elvis, he gets real keyed up. He's bit me."
(During a tour of Brushy Mountain later, I meet another guard in the bowels of the maximum security section who worked with the dogs for several years a number of years ago. He laments what he says is a decline in the quality of the dogs at the prison. They used to have attack dogs, but the state did away with them, he says.)
We drive to nearby Frozen Head State Park to give Big Boy a chance to practice. Phillips says he'll give me a 15-minute head start and then follow in pursuit with Big Boy.
When I hit the woods running, I couldn't care less if Big Boy tracks me down in record time. I'm more terrified about snakes. I've hiked these woods many times and never seen one, but Phillips has warned me that they've seen and killed several rattlers in recent days. "They're on the move," he says.
Fortunately for me, they're seen more now in the fields (where the inmates work), not in the woods, where I'll be running. I jog along a deer path for a while, until I come to a small stream, which I cross back and forth a number of times. I can't help thinking of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, on one of his many escapes from prison.
"Anybody can lose a dog, for a while," Phillips told me earlier. "If you know a dog's following you and you set your mind to it." However, he also told me that when people are given a 30-minute head start, Big Boy can find them in 20 minutes. "He moves a lot faster than people do in the woods."
When tracking someone for real, the dog won't necessarily follow the person's every track. For instance, when the inmate escaped last year, Big Boy began following until it became clear the escapee was crossing the mountain. So officers put the dog in the truck, drove to the other side of the mountain and had Big Boy pick up his scent again.
The officers also work with a team that tracks using visual signs. So if the dog loses a scent, they can help put him back on it. "It's up to you to make sure he's on the right track," Phillips says.
I cut back in an arc toward the main trail, right where the trail crosses the stream via a wooden bridge. But when I reach the trail, I backtrack about 20 yards, walk into the stream and cross underneath the bridge. Climbing the opposite bank, I walk about another 30 yards into the woods, find a big tree to hide behind, and wait.
Brushy Mountain only runs one dog at a time. Since they're not trained to run in a pack, the dogs don't bark. You don't hear them coming. The wait seems to go on for ever. I hear rustling a few times and once even the squawking of Phillips' portable radio. But the anticipated slurpy greeting from Big Boy never comes. After about 40 minutes or an hour, I slowly walk back to the truck.
Big Boy follows out shortly after, a string of dog slobber drying on his noggin.
Phillips says the dog had the trail for a while. But when he came to some kids playing in the creek, he knew the dog had lost it. So Phillips pulled him back to find the trail again. For some reason, Big Boy didn't have much energy today, Phillips says, but he isn't sure why. Maybe it's the heat. Or maybe the dog hasn't quite recovered from his recent neutering, to fight an infection.
"Dogs are a lot like kids—they'll either make you look like the best in the world or they'll make you look like an idiot. It's hard to trust 'em sometimes."
July 19, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 29
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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