Buster

Buster was a black Labrador Retriever; he looked pretty much like many other black Labradors and if you had met him, you wouldn’t have noticed anything remarkable except for the obvious. He only had three legs! Losing one to cancer. Despite this impediment, he became one of the greatest of all time in his field of expertise.

Buster was a human remains detection dog (HRDD), also known as a victim recovery dog (VRD), but more commonly referred to as a cadaver dog.

Now, before we get involved with the exploits of Buster, I think it is important to explain the intricacies of how one of these dogs operates.

The first cadaver dog

First, the origins of using cadaver dog goes back well over 200 years. The first dog and the one to show the way was not trained at all, but back in 1808 in Germany, the dog indicated the burial place of two missing women, thus enabling the police to charge their suspect. It wasn’t until 1974 that the first recognised cadaver dog emerged.

She was Pearl, a yellow Labrador trained by Jim Suffolk of the New York police department.

A cadaver dog will spend hundreds of hours learning the art, this can take anything up to 4 years. Due to the expense and time taken, very few law enforcement agencies have their own dog and most are owned and trained by private individuals. This can sometimes lead to problems as police can be reluctant to allow civilians to be included when sharing sensitive information.

Fortunately, Buster was owned by Paul Dostie, a former police officer, which made the involvement of Buster in high-profile cases more acceptable to law enforcement.

These dogs are initially trained using a mix of chemicals that exactly replicate a dead body and, having shown their aptitude, then progress to genuine bodies. These are found in body farms where they can be monitored and, depending on the weather conditions, show the rate of decomposition, thus assisting detectives. Whilst body farms are acceptable in certain parts of the United States of America, there are none in the UK.

A cadaver dog can differentiate between human and animal remains and can discover remains thousands of years old buried 10 feet deep and underwater.

Whilst these canines have a success rate of around 95%, it is vital that the humans involved interpret the information that they provide correctly.

The McCann family

An example of how interpreting the information is critical is indicated in the case of Madeline McCann, the child who disappeared on the 5th of May 2007 from an apartment in Spain. Specialist dogs indicated that there was evidence of human remains in the rented apartment and the hire car used by the McCanns. Fingers were pointed, and the whispering began. However, even allowing for the fact that the property and car had been used before by other tourists, it surely should have been obvious that a canine capable of recognising scent thousands of years old, buried 10 feet deep and underwater, would have no difficulty finding scent left very recently by a medical doctor.

Kate McCann, Madeline’s mother, is a medical doctor, having worked in a hospital and as a General Practitioner. It must be accepted that certain individuals, by reason of their professions, can create confusion as they will have come into contact with dead bodies, and I guess doctors, nurses and undertakers will be at the top of the list. The dog can tell us if there is evidence of death, but it cannot tell us who died, when they died or how they died.

Buster’s successes

In his career, Buster discovered the remains of over 200 people, many of them fallen military personnel from the Second World War. He worked extensively in Europe, particularly in Normandy, France, the site of the D-Day landings and in Belgium at the site of the Battle of the Bulge. He also travelled regularly to the South Pacific where, on the tiny atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, he found more human remains and gave peace of mind to the families of the missing. One of his notable successes was the discovery of the unmarked grave containing the remains of a number of US marines, including the body of First Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman Jr, who was awarded the Medal of Honour, America’s highest award for heroism.

I guess that the label MIA (missing in action) must leave a permanent void. This is an endless emotional trauma, which is why these incredible canines are classified as search and rescue dogs. They cannot find the living, but at least they can reunite the dead with their relatives and give them peace of mind.

Buster was also involved in law and order cases and was involved in the horrific murders by the Charles Manson cult, and was highly involved in bringing closure to the 1947 unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as Black Delilah. This he did by recovering evidence decades after the event. In later life, he gave an indication that the body of a missing child could be located by searching a specific location.

Unfortunately, it appears that there have been a number of incidents over the years in the USA where Buster has identified a site where human remains are to be located, only for local law enforcement to decline to follow up on the information. On more than one occasion, Buster has been proven right years later, even after his death!!

His favourite toy

As most people know, the reward for a working dog usually takes the form of a toy, and Buster was no exception. His favourite toy was a blue rubber bone.

On February 27 2016, Buster was chasing his rubber bone when he had a massive heart attack. It was all over in less than 60 seconds, and the world lost one of its most successful cadaver dogs.

His work on Tarawa, however, has led to even more remains being discovered long after his demise, bringing comfort to even more families.