Editorial
Front Page - Friday, December 3, 2010
Powerful detection noses visit the K-9 unit during trials
Erica Tuggle
Officer Barry Vradenburgh is responsible for the training of the dogs within the Chattanooga Police Department’s K-9 unit. Chico, pictured here, is one of these service animals that help with the detection of drug and bomb odors and location of missing persons and suspects.
- Erica Tuggle
The average dog has 120 to 220 million cells in their nose compared to a human’s five million cells. That means a dog’s sense of smell is about 50 to 100 times more powerful than ours, and makes them a very valuable ally for sniffing out odors we couldn’t even imagine detecting.
The Chattanooga Police Department K-9 unit features nine of these powerful noses trained in different purposes ranging from narcotic and bomb detection, to tracking and patrol, and soon more than 70 of these talented dogs will be in Chattanooga for the regional canine trials.
Officer Barry Vradenburgh, the head trainer for the K-9 unit, says Chattanooga’s team of service dogs took off back in 1995, when the city was down to only one aging Labrador drug dog.
The city received two grants for four dogs each and got back into dogs in a big way. It was around this time when Chattanooga got their first bomb dog and a few dual-purpose dogs that could do both narcotics detection and patrol to find criminals.
There are several different kinds of dogs you meet working on the K-9 unit, he says.
There are narcotic detector dogs that locate drugs, bomb dogs that sniff and locate explosive odors and patrol dogs that are primarily for finding people, from those who have committed felonies to missing persons.
The dual-purpose dogs combine one of these scent jobs with patrol, such as a narcotic patrol dog or a bomb patrol dog. The point is to stick with a certain scent when they are trained, he says.
Sergeant Tommy Meeks, the
K-9 division supervisor, says they have varying breeds in the unit, like golden retrievers and bloodhounds, but most of the dogs are Malinois, also known as a Belgium Shepherd, a dog similar to a German shepherd, but leaner and taller. These dogs are popular in police departments across the nation because of their ability to be trained for dual-purpose jobs.
Meeks says, “They can sniff out odors plus they can sniff out suspects. If you go with just a Labrador or golden retrievers they are not aggressive, so we cannot use them for the patrol part.”
Most all of the dogs come from vendors who get the animals either from Holland, Germany, Switzerland or the Czech Republic, Meeks says, except for the single duty bloodhound and golden retriever the department has.
Meeks says that eight of their dogs work the street, and the bloodhound just does search and rescue. Six of the dogs are dual-purpose, and all of the dogs are trained to track. In doing this, a muzzle is used so the dogs can search for children and locate them, but can’t bite them.
These dogs are not only trained for 12-15 weeks, varying with the dog’s temperament and its pair up with a trainer, but they also have to meet certification standards from the state’s police canine inspection as well before they are ever allowed to hit the streets, Meeks says.
Vradenburgh says the sniffing and scenting ability of these dogs is their primary value to the department.
“When we can’t see a track where someone has run, the dogs can sniff it. When we can’t see or smell drugs or bombs, dogs can,” he says.
One of the main jobs the dogs are called in for is drug interdiction on the roads, he says. When a vehicle is stopped and being lawfully detained for a traffic infraction, then the courts have ruled that the air is free and officers have the right to run their dogs around the vehicle, he says.
“If the dog responds in the way that he has been trained to respond in the presence of drug odor, then that establishes probable cause for us to go ahead and search the vehicle without a warrant, without consent. It’s really helping us in our drug war,” Vradenburgh says.
The calls to which the K-9 unit responds to are all high priority calls, Meeks says. He agrees that it’s all about the nose when the dogs are called out.
“Everything he works off of is that nose, and that’s why we use dogs so well,” he says. “They can smell a tremendous amount stronger than a human can, and they can locate it a whole lot faster than we can.”
Another reason dogs are used is the safety factor when officers are required to do building or wooded area searches. In these, they send the dog out ahead of them about 30 feet to search for the criminal before officers encounter the suspect.
This also helps in locating the person, whether they are hiding in the ceiling or in a closet, or somewhere else unseen.
“The dog is out there ahead of us and it is a buffer zone between them and us before we enter that danger zone, and the dogs provide us a tremendous amount of safety,” Vradenburgh says. “Sometimes in a wooded area or building search the officers will back off and wait on the dog because that’s the safe way to do it.”
In April of 2011, it is Chattanooga’s turn to host the regional canine trials for departments in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and parts of Florida. During the first two days of the trials, 20 to 30 dogs will be in town, and the public is invited to watch this patrol training.
During the rest of the week, 30 to 70 dogs will be on hand for narcotic and bomb detection trials closed to the public.
Meeks says the department needs help from the law and real estate community in raising money for the event from buying food for the judges and other items to bring these high-powered noses to our neck of the woods.
For more information on how to sponsor the canine trials or help with this event, contact Sgt. Meeks at 643-5000.
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