The Orange County Sheriff's Office is receiving a second trained bloodhound to help find missing children or seniors with dementia.
However, if the dogs are going to find someone, they need the right scent to follow.
To help, the Central Florida region is receiving 5,000 scent preservation kits.
Both the dog and the kits are being donated by the Senior Resource Alliance, a resource center for aging adults or people with disabilities in Brevard, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties.
At a press conference Thursday, sheriff's office K-9 Unit commander Capt. Bruce McMullen said getting a good scent for a subject can be a problem; the item a family provides could be contaminated by other smells or people.
"The people we want to receive these kits are anyone who has an at-risk family member that may wander, an Alzheimer's patient, handicapped child," McMullen said. "Anyone who's prone to wander."
For those families, the sheriff's office has 1,500 free kits -- including thumb drives for photos and other information -- at its Central Operations building on Colonial Drive. And it plans to have them at substations.
Overall, 5,000 kits will be provided in the four Central Florida counties, the alliance says.
The kits are supplied by Scent Evidence K9.
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