Meet Buster, Pasco's Newest K9

LAND O’ LAKES, FL – Pasco County residents may soon notice a new deputy on the beat. This one has four legs and extra-long ears.

Buster is an 11-week-old bloodhound that has joined the agency’s K9 Unit with partner Deputy Chris Miller. The dynamic duo joins the 16 other dogs and their human partners in the unit.

Once fully trained and ready for action, Buster will be a part of the Missing and Abducted Children Team and will also serve as a key tracker for the agency.

“Bloodhounds have a reputation for possessing an outstanding sense of smell, which is due to an olfactory membrane with 300 million receptors,” the agency noted on Facebook. “Compare that to a German Shepherd’s 225 million receptors or a human’s 5 million.”

Those long ears and wrinkly skin Buster sports serve a purpose, as well. They work in concert with his heightened sense of smell to “sweep scent to their nose,” the sheriff’s office explained. “Because of their incredible sense of smell, bloodhounds have the ability to better track children, adults, victims and suspects due to the delay from the time they actually went missing to the time they were reported missing to law enforcement, which is often the case.”

Buster is expected to begin K9 training school in January. He is the only bloodhound in the county’s K9 unit.

Photo courtesy of the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office