Their Dogs Can Save Lives, Owners Boast Bloodhounds Unbeaten At Following Trails

Brent and Julie Nicholas say their dogs can save people’s lives, and they are willing to go anywhere to prove it.

Bloodhounds do not win many dog shows, nor are they built for speed, but Brent Nicholas says there is not a better dog when it comes to following a track.

Counting the two new puppies, Stephanie and Jaralee, the Nicholas family now owns four bloodhounds. The puppies are named after Jaralee Underwood, a young girl who was murdered in Bannock County on July 30, 1993, and Stephanie Crane, a girl who disappeared from the Challis area on Oct. 11, 1993 and has never been found.

The family has had tracking dogs for about eight years and Brent Nicholas has traveled throughout the state to help various law enforcement agencies.

“When we started there were no other tracking dogs in our area,” he said. “It was something we could do as a family as a service to the comm unity, and we have had a great time with it and made a lot of friends.”

Bloodhounds love children and Nicholas theorizes that is one reason why they make such good trackers.

“When we first started we had German shepherds and they didn’t seem to be able to pick up old scents as well, and they would also lose interest in a trail. But a bloodhound won’t ever lose interest in a trail,” he said.

There are documented cases of police bloodhounds that were able to track automobiles through cities, he said. A trained bloodhound’s sense of smell can be so keen that it can pick up smells that come from the air circulation system of a car. Stephanie and Jaralee came from a kennel in Wisconsin and after four to six months of extensive training they will be able to follow a trail.

After they reach the age of one, Nicholas says they should have enough confidence to carry out a variety of tracking tasks. By age eight they are generally ready for retirement.

Nicholas said the Twin Falls Police Department recently bought a bloodhound for tracking and so did the Bannock County Sheriff’s Department.

“We enjoy assisting our sheriff’s department and other local law enforcement agencies. They are a great bunch of guys, and as long as they want us to we will keep it up.”