CLARKSVILLE — Anyone who’s been lost in Johnson County in the past few years, whether on purpose or by accident, has likely met bloodhound Finnagus Sage and his handler, Sue Christian.
“We find people who want to be found and those that don’t want to be found,” Christian said.
Christian is one of two volunteer dog handlers for the Johnson County sheriff ’s office. She’s tracked escaped convicts, criminal suspects and lost children with different bloodhounds all over Arkansas since the 1990s. The rush of chasing a suspect is preferable to the stress of searching for a lost child.
“I will take a bad guywith a gun any day, over a lost kid,” she said. “Because I know what to do with a bad guy.”
Christian and Finnagus are rarely apart, always on call and until last year, they were the only K-9 team for Johnson County. That changed at a fundraiser for an area animal shelter, where Christian met Linda George.
George moved to the Clarksville area in November 2010 after retiring from a 40-year career at a dog training center in Florida. It didn’t take long before the two women were plodding through the mud together after their dogs, both serving as reserve deputies for the sheriff’s office.
Christian has been training bloodhounds since she got her first puppy about24 years ago. She said she fell in love with watching the dogs work and eventually got hooked on “hunting armed men.”
On most calls, Christian is accompanied by her husband, Ray Christian, who’s also a reserve sheriff’s deputy.
“Does it make me crazy if I say that’s what makes it fun,” she asked. “That’s what my husband and I do for fun.”
George said her love of dogs began at age 5, when her dad brought home a German shepherd puppy. In the early 1970s, women had few opportunities to be military or police dog handlers, so George said she pursued training dogs for other handlers. She never got the chance to work them herselfuntil she met Christian.
TRAILING, TRACKING
Christian said Finnagus, like her previous bloodhounds, is a trailing dog, not a tracking dog. A trailing dog keeps his head up to sniff, while a tracking dog puts his nose to the ground and follows footsteps.
George has two dogs trained for field work. Opey the Search and Rescue Dog, a Bavarian bloodhound, both trails and tracks subjects and also can follow “cold” scents.
George’s second field dog, Egan, is a Belgian Malinois that is certified in narcotics detection. Unlike many patrol dogs who are also trained in apprehension, Egan is only trained in detection work.
Being single-purpose hasn’t hampered Egan’s ability to persuade suspects to surrender quietly, George said. Egan’s “presence” is enough to keep most people clear of his cage, including Johnson County Sheriff Jimmy Dorney.
“He’s mean,” Dorney said of Egan.
Dorney is much more at ease with Finnagus, who rested on the cold tile floor of the sheriff’s office while Dorney talked about the K-9 program. Without the dedication of Christian and George, his agency wouldn’t be able to staff a K-9 department, he said.
A unit that includes one dog and one handler would cost the county about $50,000 a year, including the deputy’s salary, which starts at $23,500, he said. The county also would have to pay for benefits and equipment, not to mention the initial cost of a dog.
George said the price of a dog depends on its breed and training. A fully trained Malinois typically goes for about $10,000, while a Labrador retriever costs $5,000 to $6,000, she said.
Costs for a trailing dog vary greatly, George said.
Training is another factor in the cost of K-9 units. The state requires dog handlers to train with their dogs for eight hours a week, which means they aren’t patrolling during that time, Dorney said. Christian and George spend hours of their own time training, often with the help of off-duty deputies and their children.
Christian and George also maintain national certification on their dogs, which requires travel to other states, Dorney said.
TRAINING TRICKS
Even if Christian and George were full-time deputies, they wouldn’t limit their training to eight hours a week.
Christian said during the summer, training sometimes happens at 2 a.m. because daytime is too hot. Sometimes sheriff ’s dispatchers walk a trail for exercise after their shifts, and she and Finnagus trail them.
They sometimes also lay tracks on local football fields before games, then have the dogs follow the trail after the game is over to add difficulty, George said. They try to make each training session mimic what they see on actual calls, she said.
A short demonstration at the Johnson County sheriff’s office last week illustrated the different ways Finnagus and Egan use their noses. Christian began a short trailto find a hidden person by letting Finnagus spend a few moments sniffing the air on his own before putting a harness on him.
When the harness is on, Finnagus knows it’s time to work, Christian said. She had the dog sniff an object the person dropped, which gave him the scent to trail.
Finnagus began heading in the direction of his quarry, moving in arcs as he sniffed the air, with Christian hanging onto a long leash. When the dog got about 15 yards away, he appeared to lock on to the scent and walked a straight line, pulling Christian toward the hidden person.
Christian said she’s needed George’s help to pull Finnagus off the trail before he followed it over a bluff.
“Where the scent goes, he goes,” she said.
When Egan’s turn came, instead of a harness, Christian used a wide, flat collar, then walked him across to a vehicle where she’d hidden marijuana.
Egan sniffed emphatically along the van before locating the drug in a wheel well. To show he’d found the odor, the dog sat and barked, thereby earning his favorite reward - a piece of thick hose to chew.
VOLUNTEERS RARE
Chuck Lange, executive director of the Arkansas Sheriff ’s Association, said he knows of no other volunteer-led K-9 programs in the state, but reserve deputies are an invaluable resource for Arkansas’ 75 sheriff’s offices.
Dogs have def initely proven their worth in police work, Lange said.
Carroll County Sheriff Bob Grudek said his office has two K-9 units that have proven invaluable since being added four years ago.
“I don’t know how we would do without the dogs,” he said.
The dogs greatly enhance his deputies’ ability to enforce the law, Grudek said. Before getting the BelgianMalinois and Dutch shepherd, his deputies often had strong suspicions of motorists having drugs during traffic stops, but not enough to justify a search.
The choice of dog comes down to the department’s needs, said Michael Harrick, spokesman for the National Police Bloodhound Association, through which Christian is certified.
Trailing dogs can find suspects or lost people, which is important, but they don’t bring the financial return of the cash sometimes found with drugs, Harrick said. Departments with limited budgets often choose a dog that can bring in cash, he said.
If a department needs a dog that can find people, there’s none better than the bloodhound, he said.
George is certified with Egan through the state, the North American Police Working Dogs Association, and the National Narcotic Detector Dog Association.
Volunteer K-9 units arerare outside of search and rescue groups, said Gary Garrison, spokesman for the North American Police Working Dogs Association. In fact, Garrison said he’s not aware of another one in the nation similar to Johnson County’s.
It’s impressive to have volunteers who are dedicated enough to train their dogs to the level necessary to achieve national certification.
“That tends to make a better qualified team,” he said. “And it’s all hard work and time if they’re meeting the same standards that I’m meeting.”
Garrison said dogs are an extension of the police officer. There is no adequate measure for the dog’s success as a deterrent or his willingness to work.
“A police dog doesn’t complain. It doesn’t work for a monetary amount we feel we deserve,” he said. “It just wants love, affection and to please its handler.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 04/01/2012