Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Officer Brian Winsore and canine companion Benny demonstrate how to get a reluctant suspect out of a car.

It's a tough job, but a dog's gotta do it

By John Pancharian

Millions of dollars' worth of narcotics lay hidden about an obscure San Jose impound yard as numerous police dogs searched the area. They were not there as part of any major drug bust, but to learn the skills necessary for canine policing.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department played host to the International Police Canine Conference, held May 2-7 in locations throughout the county. Deputies Kevin Greig and Mike Powers of the Westside Substation in Saratoga and police dogs "Marco" and "Kato" were among the attendees who took courses in both the classroom and the field, exchanged ideas with other police and sharpened their skills.

Nearly 100 officers and their dogs from all over the western United States and Canada came together to receive instruction in tracking and searches, critical vehicle stops, narcotics searches and administering canine units.

"We're basically looking for the four major food groups--marijuana, cocaine, heroine and methamphetamine," Greig said from the driveway of the impound yard. Officers with dogs trained in narcotics-searching techniques gathered to test their four-legged partners' abilities to find drugs hidden in vehicles and inside buildings.

Greig provided a play-by-play narrative as an officer from Southern California tested his dog's ability to find drugs hidden in an upstairs room in the impound yard. An instructor watched as the dog began by searching the perimeter of the large, barren room, eagerly snuffling through trash strewn about the walls. The dog paused momentarily at a file cabinet, moved on but then returned to it. With the handler's encouragement, the dog gave an alert response, scratching frenetically at the side of the file cabinet.

"The dog is not the total brains of the outfit," Greig explained, adding that communication between the handler and the dog is critical. Often, he said, a dog will "half alert" on a smell and the handler must be able to "read" his dog to know when a turn of the head or a change in the breathing is significant.

Officers also learned techniques for tracking both lost citizens and criminal suspects. Greig explained that people constantly shed bits of skin called "rafts," which the dogs can smell. If moving over grass or through other foliage, people also cause a decay process in the plants that dogs can detect in the same way a human can smell freshly mowed grass.

In Saratoga, Greig and Powers said they often respond to prowler calls. In a sizable and darkened yard, the officer might take hours to search with a flashlight for clues and suspects and still leave without much confidence that he found everything there was to find. With a dog, the search goes faster, and deputies are more confident in the results.

Administrative Agent Joe Kirby, also of the Westside Substation, started the canine program in the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department. His experience with canine units goes back to 1967, when he used dogs to help secure the crash sites of American planes in the Vietnam War.

"They're probably the best second officer you could have," Kirby said. "They don't ever want to drive the car, and they eat where you want to eat."

Kirby said canine units are also useful in situations where it's too dangerous to send a person in. In a critical traffic stop, one in which officers believe suspects may be dangerous, dogs can be used to remove uncooperative suspects from the car or to search the car for more suspects.

Kirby said dogs are very useful for their deterrent effect. "Criminals don't have conferences," Kirby said. "They go to jail. But they talk there, and learn where to go and where not to go." He said if an area has a reputation for maintaining skilled canine patrols, criminals will often go elsewhere.

It takes about four months to train a dog, Kirby said, and about a year for the handler and dog to establish a good working relationship. A trained dog costs anywhere from $8,500 to $10,000, but Kirby said it pays the department back more than that with the service and saved man-hours it provides.

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