EVERETT — Her mouth closed and her breathing quickened.
Lola, a 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever police dog, reached out her blond paw and scratched at a duffle bag, where training officers had hidden five pounds of marijuana.
During a weeklong training program at four locations around Snohomish County, 42 police dogs sniffed and scratched as they practiced hunting down cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and pot.
The dogs were led through a barn and a home near Bothell and around a variety of cars and commercial trucks in a parking lot off Casino Road in south Everett.
“We’re exposing the dogs to all the environments where they’re likely to work,” said Gordon McGuinness, the vice president of the Pacific Northwest Police Detection Dog Association and a sergeant with the Vancouver Police Department across the border in British Columbia.
This week’s training was designed especially for drug- detection dogs, McGuinness said. The training is an important time to safely have the dogs practice their work.
At the Casino Road training location, drugs were tucked into fake-bottomed aerosol cans, cubby holes cut in the bottom of big-rig trailers and other hiding areas.
Smugglers are becoming increasingly clever when it comes to concealing drugs from police, McGuinness said. Criminals will try to trick the dogs’ powerful noses by stashing the drugs inside pungent materials such as coffee or grease.
McGuinness said he once was working with a dog who found a pound of cocaine packed in grease and submerged in a can of oil.
During the training, grease, food and other smelly decoys are used to try to distract the dogs’ sensitive sniffers.
Police dogs can tell the difference between all the smells and are taught to ignore food while looking for contraband, the training experts said. Still, Lola needed a bit of reminding when her nose passed an Egg McMuffin sandwich.
“Leave it!” her handler said.
Like Lola, most of the dogs participating in the training were Labrador and golden retrievers, but several German shepherds, a Rottweiler and a Belgian malinois were included in the pack.
Participants were from British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and throughout Washington. Seven drug-detection dogs from Snohomish County were put through the paces.
Walla Walla police officer Steve Echevarria brought his dog Beamer, 11, an eight-year police veteran. Beamer is known as a Sea-Tac retriever. Her grandfather was one of the first drug dogs to work at the airport, Echevarria said.
He said usually it’s the handlers who make mistakes when tracking down illegal drugs. Climbing in and around trucks and cars under the watchful supervision of expert trainers was a good opportunity for handlers to get feedback and improve.
“It’s invaluable,” he said. “It’s what keep the team sharp.”
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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