ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9604010144
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-20 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
Linus, a 4 1/2-year-old golden retriever, pawed at his cage, ready for the job at hand: searching lockers and cars at Pulaski County High School during an unannounced visit by the Sheriff's Office this month.
Sgt. Jerry Taylor, Linus' handler and a Pulaski County deputy, coaxed his dog with encouraging words before unlatching the cage.
"He enjoys what he does so much. The more fired up he is, the better he's going to search," Taylor said.
Once out of the cage, Linus takes off in a flash, heading for the school doors at a frenzied gait, pulling Taylor along.
"He searches as fast as he wants to. It's my job to keep up," Taylor said.
Dogs like Linus are becoming increasingly popular with local law enforcement agencies that want to be more aggressive in their drug investigations and searches. In the past, these departments relied on the Virginia State Police or state correctional units to provide trained dogs for everything from drug investigations to searches for suspects.
The dogs' increasing popularity was evident by the turnout at the school search, where drug dogs and their handlers from Montgomery County, Wythe County, Virginia State Police and Bland Correctional Center joined Linus and the Pulaski County deputies for the morning search.
The dogs, handpicked by state police to go through a 12-week training course in Richmond, belong to the local departments. The handlers keep the dogs at home and are reimbursed by the county for food and veterinary costs.
Pulaski County Sheriff Ralph Dobbins sent Taylor to the drug dog school in 1991. Linus was already recruited and just waiting for training.
"He came out of the Roanoke City dog pound. They were going to destroy him," Taylor said.
Linus was rescued when he was 9 months old, when his energetic enthusiasm with a bouncing ball caught the eye of state police. Two weeks later, he started training as a drug dog.
"They took a chance on him and he made a heck of a dog," Taylor said. Linus became his partner when instructors decided the two made a good match.
"They try to match the dog and handler's personalities. ... Me and him just clicked. It was just like father and son," Taylor said.
Back at the high school, Linus and the other drug dogs finish sniffing lockers at the school within minutes and move on to the parking lot while investigators stay behind to check out the lockers the dogs keyed on.
The Sheriff's Office conducts the searches randomly throughout the school year as a deterrent, Dobbins said. The searches have the blessing of school officials, who sometimes know about the visit in advance, and sometimes don't.
In the parking lot, Taylor continues to encourage Linus. "Yes! Yes! Good boy!" he says when Linus gives the signal he thinks there are drugs in a car. "Where's it at, huh? Where's it at, Linus?" he asks.
To Linus, "it" is a rolled-up towel. Drug dogs are trained to find drugs by using a towel that has the scent of an illegal drug - marijuana, cocaine, whatever. When he's pawing furiously at a car door, he thinks his towel - the only reward he gets - is inside. But Taylor and other police get excited because they know drugs either are in the car or the aroma of once-present drugs is lingering.
"It's a game. That dog has no idea that he's looking for crack cocaine or marijuana," Pulaski County Sheriff Ralph Dobbins said. "The dog thinks the towel's in there and it's going to be fun, it's playtime."
But for his handler, it's time to go to work. With permission to search from the car owner - or a search warrant if the permission is withheld - investigators hand-search the car for drugs or paraphernalia such as smoking pipes.
While dogs can search cars, Pulaski County deputies prefer to do it themselves. Linus, for instance, can get overeager, pawing at dashboards or radio decks to the point of damaging a car.
"He will tear the paint off that car if he detects that odor," Dobbins said.
Drug dogs like Linus are trained to detect drugs even if efforts have been made to mask the odor with air fresheners, fuel, bleach or other tricks of the drug trade.
"Linus can smell it in a gas tank," Dobbins said.
Across the parking lot, Montgomery County Deputy Sheriff Dale Hall worked his dog. He and other dog handlers from the New River Valley had joined Taylor and Linus for the search at the school. It's a good training opportunity for them.
"Where is it? You tell Daddy where it's at," Hall prodded.
Aces is an 8-year-old black Labrador retriever that has worked since he was age 2. He has made more than $1 million in seizures, the largest being $100,000 in cocaine.
Led on leashes, the dogs eagerly circled the cars in the high school's student lot, returning repeatedly to a handful of vehicles, pulled by their keen sense of smell. School personnel help the deputies, bringing the student drivers to the parking lot. The students give their permission to search, assuring the officers there is nothing inside.
While the dogs selected several lockers and cars that should be searched, no drugs are found, although a search of one car did yield rolling papers and a pipe that could have marijuana residue in it.
"He's a deterrent. Those kids up there know we have that dog and they know we will bring Linus up there," Dobbins said.
One student told deputies that while there were no drugs in the car that day, there had been in the past.
"Nobody knows how long the odor will last," Hall, the Montgomery County deputy, said. He has had searches that yield nothing even when Aces has been definite that he had found something. Once someone admitted marijuana had been smoked in a car three months earlier.
Dobbins is sold on Linus and the value trained dogs like him provide to law enforcement and the community.
Police dogs "provide us with a resource that we never had before," Dobbins said.
Before Linus, the Sheriff's Office had limited success with its drug enforcement efforts using "a hit-and-miss human type of thing" based more on undercover investigations and informants, according to Dobbins.
"Now, with Linus we've upped the opportunity ... to the point that now I've got a full-time drug officer. It's sort of like he's running the show now. We're finding out daily what he's capable of."
Dobbins wants to take advantage of being centrally located to Interstate 81 and Interstate 77 - likely major arteries for drug dealers.
Seizures of vehicles and money from drug searches help provide law enforcement with equipment and money to continue drug interdiction work.
"We want a piece of that pie ourselves," Dobbins said.
Dobbins said Linus is well-known around the county.
"Linus and Jerry [Taylor] have done a lot. We've gone to [United Parcel Service]. ... Periodically, we'll run all the mail. He's been to the post office and the schools."
Linus helps the deputies play on "dope dealers' paranoia," the sheriff said, while making it easier to obtain permission to search, and to find a stash. "Everybody loves a dog," the sheriff said.
That includes him. The sheriff counts Linus as a model employee.
"They're very cost-effective. They deem them as a piece of equipment but they're like family," said Dobbins. "He's just such an asset. ... For what we pay him, he's the ultimate employee. He's well-trained, never calls in sick, has a good personality. He's a pleasure to have around."
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. 1. Sgt. Jerry Taylor of Pulaski Countyby CNBSheriff's Office is pulled by his dog Linus while searching for
drugs in the parking lot of Pulaski County High School. (ran on
NRV-1) 2. Sgt. Jerry Taylor of the Pulaski County Sheriff's
Department uses Linus to check for drugs in the parking lot at
Pulaski County High School. The dog handler is trained to keep pace
with the dog, and in Linus' case it's a run. The dog can smell while
breathing out as well as breathing in. 3. (no caption). color. 4.
The dog's search in the parking lot turned up some rolling papers. A
pipe was suspected to have marijuana residue in it also was found.
5. Deputy Dale Hall uses a towel scented with drugs to train Linus.
When Linus searches for drugs, he thinks he is looking for the
towel.