By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER

It’s Wednesday afternoon and I’m taking my usual afternoon stroll through Lynchburg. I usually make a three-mile loop down Main Street, through the square, down into Wiseman Park and Tanyard Hill, then over to Lynchburg Cemetery. It’s around three miles.

Tonight, it’s threatening to rain. Determined, I decide to take my chances, but instead of my normal path, I do loops around the square and the park in case it starts to pour. My childhood best friend lives nearby on Main Street and I know I can count on her to come save me if worse comes to worse.

As I round the corner near the gazebo to head back home, I spot a couple of familiar faces, Zach Means, Hunter Case, and Hoss, the Metro Moore County Emergency Management Agency’s (EMA) scent discriminate canine or bloodhound.

“I know that dog,” I say as I head towards the trio – noticing that both Means and Case seem on task. At the sound of my voice, Hoss heads over to sniff me and my instinct is to reach down, then I remember he might be working.

“Is it okay to pet him?” I ask as I lift my arms above my head and out of Hoss’s reach.

“Not this second,” Means says. “He’s working.”

“No problem. I’ll catch him later.”

Hoss’s origin story

Hoss boasts a really cool origin story. He arrived in Moore County in 2022 thanks to a generous donation from an area farmer, Robert Darden, and Jack Daniel’s Distillery. It’s a story of turning tragedy into an opportunity to pay it forward after Darden discovered the peace of mind that a bloodhound like Hoss can bring.

On April 21, 2020 Darden’s 43-year-old, special needs son, Daniel, went missing from their Moore County farm located off Highway 41A in the tip of the “Moore County porkchop” edged in between Bedford and Coffee counties. When Moore County and Bedford County public safety officials arrived on scene, they immediately began a grid search utilizing both drones and a thermal imaging cameras to no avail. As midnight approached, desperation set in.

That’s when EMA Director Jason Deal and Moore County Sheriff Tyler Hatfield remembered that Franklin County EMA recently launched a scent dog program. They reached out and within an hour, Ruger the bloodhound arrived.

His handlers started by obtaining a personal item from Daniel’s room to help the bloodhound establish his scent. Then, they eliminated everyone else on scene through a process called discrimination.

Forty minutes later, Ruger found Daniel lodged under a large hickory tree limb on the family’s farm. His official cause of death was positional asphyxiation – a condition where a person’s body position obstructs their breathing, leading to oxygen deprivation. It was just a freak accident.

A year later, Mr. Darden reached out to Director Deal wanting to sponsor a blood hound for Moore County. Both Director Deal and Sheriff Hatfield loved the idea.

“People go missing in rural Moore County much more often than people think, especially vulnerable populations like children or those with Alzheimer’s or dementia,” Director Deal told us at the time.

Tourist Town = Training Ground

A couple of days after my serendipitous Hoss interaction, I contacted Director Deal about another story I’m working on, and my curiosity got the best of me.

“I spotted Hoss down off the square on Wednesday. Was he working or just training?” I asked.

That’s when Director Deal explained that the Lynchburg Square makes the perfect spot to train a bloodhound like Hoss.

“There are hundreds of smells down around the square because of all the tourists,” he says. “It really helps Hoss get better at singling out just one scent.”

The following day, Hoss gets called up for duty when a local nonverbal autistic child goes missing near Old Fayetteville Highway. Within less than an hour the Moore County Volunteer Fire Department, Metro Moore County Sheriff’s Department, Metro Moore County EMS and EMA, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Jack Daniel’s Fire Brigade, Jack Daniel’s security team, and a host of volunteers launched a grid search the area – all of them taking their cues from Hoss.

Luckily, the little girl named Leilani was later found safe inside her home, and our community breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Hoss played a crucial role that night. He and Case worked the grid relentlessly and never picked up a whiff of the child. That’s when those is command knew to redirect the search inside the home.

“Hoss did his job and told Hunter that the missing kid was not out here,” explains Director Deal. “That’s when we decided to tear the house apart and look for her, and that is when we found her. Hoss works as a tool for the incident commanders to help concentrate resources in certain areas based on what Hoss is trying to tell Hunter and Zach and that is what they train to do – how to read and communicate with Hoss.”

The furry, four-legged Avengers

Alzheimer’s Awareness Month happens in September. The annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s will be held in downtown Lynchburg on Saturday, September 20.

Bloodhounds like Hoss are often deployed specifically to search for people with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia among other vulnerable groups like children with autism. It’s estimated that 60 percent of Alzheimer’s patients wander at least once, and bloodhounds are often crucial in getting them back home.

About once each month, the Moore County, Bedford County, and Franklin County bloodhounds – Hoss, Bruno, and Ruger – assemble like a band of four-legged Avengers to get better at their jobs. The Tri-County K9 Team, as they’re collectively called, and their handlers simulate a missing person’s case. Sometimes the trail is hot – meaning freshly laid – and sometimes it’s over 24 hours old, by design, to stretch the pup’s tracking ability. They also practice “leapfrogging” dogs, a method where one K-9 picks up where the last one left off to help teams figure out which direction a missing person is headed – especially useful when time is critical or the trail is unclear.

“Most people think K-9 dogs lead to finding a person directly, but they are just as important as a tool and a huge resource for your emergency manager/incident command,” Director Deal explains.

“With limited resources, the dogs can help us decide the missing person’s direction of travel. That allows the case manager to coordinate all their resources in that area and help predict the travel based on age, health, and time.”

Hoss may not wear a cape, but in a small town like Lynchburg, a nose like his can make all the difference. Whether he’s tracking a scent through a sea of tourists or helping reunite a family, he’s a four-legged reminder of how one community – and one dog – can turn heartbreak into hope.•

About The Lynchburg Times
The Lynchburg Times is an independent, woman-owned newspaper rooted in the heart of southern middle Tennessee. Led by a Tulane-educated journalist with over two decades of experience covering this region, we shine a light on the people, politics, and cultural pulse of a changing South. From breaking news to slow storytelling, we believe local journalism should inform, empower, and preserve what makes this place unique. Supported by readers and community partners, we’re proud to be part of the new Southern narrative – one story at a time. [Support us here.]