CUMBERLAND — If you’re afraid that your child or another family member may wander off or be abducted, and you are storing fingerprints or photographs in the event that happens, consider adding another safety measure: a tooth print.

A tooth print is a dental imprint of a person’s bite that can be used to identify a body, especially when the body is that of a younger child, who may not have a dental record.

It can also be useful for tracking missing persons, because the imprint captures a person’s DNA and saliva. Specially trained police dogs can seek out a person based on a whiff of saliva and the DNA can be compared with samples gathered at the scene of a crime.

In New England, there are two such saliva-sniffing dogs, kept by police departments in Milton, Mass., and Dracut, Mass.

One of those dogs, Mason, a three-year-old German shepherd, and his handler, Dracut Police Officer William Bailey, visited a local dentist’s office yesterday to show off the dog’s scent-sniffing skills to police officials from Cumberland and neighboring Central Falls.

Dr. Angeles V. Felix also opened her office at 490 High St. for a demonstration of the tooth-printing process.

Tooth printing is nothing new. Invented two decades ago by a Natick, Mass., dentist, it involves an imprint of a person’s upper and lower teeth taken on a thin wafer of thermo-plastic.

The print records individual tooth characteristics and the shape and arch of the jaw — all important information for identification. Saliva and DNA retained by the print deteriorates over time, so dentists recommend getting a new print once every two to three years.

But the inexpensive process (Felix charges $5 for it) has been slow to catch on in the Ocean State, according to Dr. Michael A. Barry, a dentist in Johnston who is a member of the Rhode Island Association of Dentists.

Felix is one of just a handful of dentists that offer the service in Southern New England, and perhaps the first in Rhode Island to do so from her offices, says Barry. The service is not currently covered by dental plans.

The Freemasons of Rhode Island offer free tooth printing as part of their Child Identification Program, or CHIP. The Masons offer the child identification service, which includes fingerprinting and making a two-minute video interview of the child, at many local fairs and functions throughout the year.

Rhode Island dentists, including Barry, typically volunteer their time to administer the tooth prints for the Masons’ program, although dental training is not necessary to make the prints.

Cumberland Police Chief John Desmarais recommends parents get their children tooth printed. But with the closest saliva-smelling dog to Rhode Island about an hour and a half away in Dracut, Mass., Desmarais said the challenge for local police in taking advantage of the technology would be getting a dog of their own.

Cumberland, like many municipalities, does not have its own K-9 unit. Only a handful of the state’s largest communities and the State Police have one, and no police dog in the state is trained to track the scent of saliva.

“I can see it as something the state police could look into. They have bomb-sniffing dogs, drug-sniffing dogs, why not this?” said Desmarais.

The Freemasons of Massachusetts paid for Dracut’s dog, Mason, a costly endeavor that could run a department more than tens of thousands of dollars once training and care are considered, said Bailey, Mason’s handler.

Mason, for his part, has aided in a number of missing-persons cases, the most recent of which was eight months ago. But Mason has not had to use his saliva-smelling skills in an active investigation since his training two year ago, said Bailey.

Felix, who has practiced dentistry for 11 years, performed her first tooth print on 11-year-old Cumberland resident Abigail St. John yesterday.

After the imprint was placed in a sterile plastic bag, Abigail went off to hide in the neighborhood. Mason, waiting in the back seat of a police cruiser, took a few whiffs of the imprint and immediately set off to find her.

Within three minutes, Mason found Abigail, hiding in a set of shrubs 10 houses down from the dental office. “Saving kids lives is what this is about,” Bailey said, after the demonstration. “This is a technology that is out there that we have to use.”

pmarcelo@projo.com