Belle is a very good girl.
The German Shorthaired Pointer was just eight months old when she arrived at the Brockton Veterans Affairs Medical Center and while that breed isn’t necessarily what you think of when you visualize a police dog, they are becoming a lot more common, especially when you consider their aptitude for tracking.
“Tracking and trailing is definitely her strong suit,” said Sgt. Nathan Dufault, a police officer at Boston VA. “She is a tracking star. She loves it. When we get her outside and tell her she must go find somebody, she’s happier than my 6-year-old at Christmas. That has a lot to do with her breed and her natural instinct of finding and chasing birds.”
Dufault emphasized that Belle’s tracking ability would be critical in an emergency.
“If we can get a good last known location and a clean scent sample, that’s a huge time difference between having police officers do a search or having a dog do a track or a trail of the whole campus,” Dufault said. “In New England, if somebody wanders off in the middle of winter, temperatures drop very quickly, so time is critical.”
Dufault and Belle completed their training and certification early 2022. The 16-week course was in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, and provided certification through the American Police Canine Association.
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“The certification is only good if it’s me and her together because we spend the entire training learning how to read our dog’s behavior and how to read the surroundings,” Dufault said.
Dufault added that one of his happiest moments with Belle happened right before the pair graduated.
“It was a bad day out—raining, super windy, and with tracking, the conditions matter a lot. I was one of the last ones to go after no one else was able to complete their tracks that day,” he recalled. “After about two and a half miles, I thought for sure she was running me in circles.”
Belle suddenly began pulling.
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“I take this corner and she’s sitting at the feet of one of my buddies from school.” Dufault continued. “That really solidified the fact for me that you need to trust your dog.”
Belle is trained in both tracking people and narcotics. She will either sit or lay down when she finds a scent, which is known as a passive alert.
If she’s found narcotics, she’ll lock up, sit and stare, look at the handler and then look back at where she thinks the odor is coming from. Both Dufault and
Belle are required to maintain at least eight hours of training a month on both topics.
Dufault also talked about K9 vehicles.
“They’re designed for her comfort. She’s got a constant supply of fresh water. Most canine vehicles always have one or both of their windows down. It’s not just for temperature regulation,” he said. “It allows the outside scents in, so she’s always acclimated with what’s going on outside. Scent work is so time sensitive and so dependent on the circumstances. The sooner we know the higher chance of a positive outcome there is—especially if it’s after hours, nights or weekends—the sooner we know, the better our odds are of getting a good scent for a person or narcotics.
"The other big thing we have to tell people is if you’re going to request the canine, leave the scene alone and do not touch anything. When you touch the item that has the scent on it, my dog will then start tracking you instead.”
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.