<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="11"> Frog would become legendary as one of the nation's first and most effective narcotics-sniffing dogs.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="12"> In eight years until his death in June, 1986, he ferreted out more than $155 million worth of heroin, cocaine and marijuana hidden in radios, false suitcase bottoms, cargo containers, cars and planes.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="16"> In the nation's multibillion-dollar war on drugs, it seems that nothing can beat the nose of a good dog.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="19"> Narcotics-sniffing dogs represent a bargain in a drug war being waged with $18-million radar blimps and command centers jammed with sophisticated electronic gear.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="20"> They also tend to be less susceptible to bribes and similar scandals.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="31"> Last September, it was the dark, moist snout of the Monrovia police department's Dandy, a German shepherd, that helped police find and seize 20 tons of cocaine in Sylmar valued at more than $6 billion -- the largest narcotics haul ever in the United States.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="32"> His reaction to the warehouse persuaded a judge to issue a warrant for the place to be raided.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="33"> Winston, a yellow Labrador working for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, was instrumental in the seizure of more than $5.2 million -- the second-largest cash seizure ever -- in suspected drug profits.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="34"> Dogs have been known to "alert" -- pointing their noses or scratching at places where drugs are hidden -- to as little as one marijuana seed or somebody's drug-tainted breath.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="39"> The dogs are trained to search for odors associated with various narcotics and then rewarded, often with nothing more than a tug on a towel or playing fetch with a rubber ball, when they "alert" to the presence of the drug.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="40"> Police officials say concealed drugs that would take a team of officers hours, if not days, to locate, can be tracked down by a dog in only minutes.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="41"> Leahan recalled that Frog, a pit-bull mix, once signaled a "hit" on a large radio carried by a passenger at Los Angeles International Airport, but despite a long search, police could find nothing.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="42"> "We looked everywhere," Leahan said, "and we kept coming up empty-handed.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="43"> We turned on the radio and it played, so we assumed the batteries were OK.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="44"> But Frog kept alerting to the radio.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="45"> When we were about to give up, we found the radio was rigged to some kind of hearing-aid battery and the batteries we were looking at were filled with cocaine".</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="46"> Barco, the legendary Border Patrol canine, has uncovered shipments of marijuana and cocaine hidden in frozen fish, okra, garlic and onions, and once found several hundred pounds of cocaine sealed in airtight containers and floating in a truck's gas tank.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="47"> Winston used his nose to lead Orange County officers to $2.8 million in drug-tainted cash and almost 4,000 pounds of cocaine, hidden in cedar chests and covered with mothballs.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="48"> The Mississippi Highway Patrol's chocolate Labrador, Coco, is touted for his ability to sniff the scent of drugs in a car parked with 5,000 others in an airport parking lot.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="49"> Judges have shown respect for the canines' capabilities.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="50"> Often they will issue a search warrant when the scent of a narcotic is apparent to a dog but not investigators.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="51"> Courts have consistently upheld the use of narcotics dogs in drug arrests, and in some cases have held them to be beyond reproach.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="60"> In New York, Customs has reported two cases where canines in the "small dog" program -- these dogs sniff arriving international flight passengers -- correctly alerted to people who had swallowed cocaine stuffed in condoms.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="67"> Buying and training a dog in narcotics detection costs between $3,000 to $10,000, but after the initial expenditures there is little more than food and veterinary care.</s>

<s docid="LA030390-0076" num="85"> Leahan said any dog with good retrieval instincts and a good nose -- "anything but those dogs with the smashed-up noses" -- are candidates for narcotics dogs, though most police agencies concede there is a prejudice against smaller dogs that don't fit the public's perception of a police dog.</s>

<s docid="LA011190-0201" num="39"> Tackett, who runs his business out of his home, says he turns away more than half the dogs brought to him for protection training.</s>

<s docid="LA011190-0201" num="40"> "What I like to see in a dog is that they're very sociable, friendly and self-confident," Tackett said.</s>

<s docid="LA011190-0201" num="41"> "If he has those traits, we can train him".</s>

<s docid="LA011190-0201" num="56"> Rottweilers, German shepherds and Belgian Malinois -- an increasingly popular breed, particularly with law enforcement agencies -- are ideal for protection work, trainers agree.</s>

<s docid="LA011190-0201" num="77"> Training a dog can cost from $300 for basic obedience to $3,000 and up for advanced, specialized protection training.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="12"> It just happened to be dark and moist and attached to the snout of Dandy Vom Sargau, a graying, 9-year-old German shepherd who works nights for the Monrovia Police Department.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="13"> When the dog was asked to sniff a tattered cardboard box that had been discovered outside the warehouse, he exploded in a snarling fury that police said could only mean he had detected a trace of narcotics.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="17"> Virtually every San Gabriel Valley law enforcement agency -- even those with their own canine units -- have asked Dandy for help.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="18"> He has also performed searches for the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, California Highway Patrol, the Postal Service, Secret Service and FBI.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="25"> In his six years of duty -- which will end in January when the dog retires -- Dandy has played the game at least 450 times, leading to seizures of cash and narcotics valued at more than $1 billion, Miglia said.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="30"> Not that his training hasn't had its rigors.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="31"> Dandy isn't allowed to eat anything other than the dry dog food Miglia feeds him, a rule that helped keep him under control when he was once asked to search a meat market.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="32"> Sex is strictly prohibited, thus limiting distractions in the event that a female dog in heat should cross his path while on the job.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="38"> Despite such occasional incidents, the dogs are not vicious, their handlers say.</s>

<s docid="LA112589-0119" num="39"> They merely respond to the aggressiveness of the suspect, and then only when given a command to attack.</s>

<s docid="LA092790-0013" num="16"> "We are happy with our K-9 unit," said Assistant Police Chief William Cady, adding that the four dogs in the department help find lost children and locate hidden narcotics and suspects.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="8"> San Diego County jails have a common and troubling problem: too many inmates, too few jailers.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="9"> During a typical shift at the Descanso honor farm, about 10 sheriff's deputies watch more than 400 inmates.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="10"> At the Las Colinas Jail in Santee, about 30 deputies and corrections officers oversee more than 1,000 male and female inmates.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="11"> To help even the odds, the Sheriff's Department has put some furry, four-legged friends on the job.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="13"> Most of the county's potentially dangerous inmates are sent to other facilities, and the dogs are stationed in Descanso and Santee partly for crowd control, said Mel Nichols, the county's commander of jail operations.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="15"> Nichols hopes the animals will also excel at another part of their job description: hunting down escaped inmates in the rural areas around the two jails.</s>

<s docid="LA081390-0047" num="21"> No other county in California uses dogs to assist jailers, but San Diego's experiment with the animals might lead others to try them as well, Nichols said.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="15"> After extra hours of training by LaVigne, the dog proved his worth during more than five years of chasing criminals.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="16"> In more than 100 searches for suspects, Bill was successful in 65 of them, police officials said.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="27"> LaVigne remembered the time, about three years ago, when Bill found a car-theft suspect after other officers had given up the search.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="28"> Bill kept barking and scratching at a garage that police had locked after searching it, LaVigne said.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="29"> The garage was searched again and the suspect was found hiding in a cabinet, LaVigne said.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="30"> The suspect had somehow sneaked inside after the police made their initial search, LaVigne said.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="31"> LaVigne also recalled the time, despite a cut paw, when Bill was able to hold onto a man trying to flee after beating up a woman.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="32"> The man had cut Bill's paw with a large iron chain.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="33"> Bill needed stitches to close the wound.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="44"> The dogs, which are imported from Germany and Holland, are taught to use their noses in finding suspects, she said.</s>

<s docid="LA082789-0196" num="45"> Lt. Russell Beecher, who is in charge of the South Gate police K-9 program, said the dogs are also taught only to attack a fleeing suspect or one that is threatening the officer or the animal.</s>

<s docid="LA072989-0111" num="12"> Welz sniffed out the armed suspect, who had eluded Los Angeles police officers by hiding under a parked car in Inglewood.</s>

<s docid="LA072989-0111" num="13"> After taking a rap over the head, the dog subdued the suspect until officers arrived.</s>

<s docid="LA031490-0004" num="24"> For example, the Port Hueneme Police Department provided a narcotics-sniffing dog in a Simi Valley police investigation last August that led to the largest seizure of cocaine ever by authorities from Ventura County -- 2,068 pounds -- as well as $2.4 million in suspected drug profits.</s>

<s docid="LA032690-0008" num="10"> A German shepherd guard dog named Dante did nothing to stop an intruder who six years ago shot and killed the man the dog had been trained to protect, but what would appear to be a case of canine cowardice has instead become a key piece of evidence in the trial of the alleged killer.</s>

<s docid="LA032690-0008" num="11"> Noel P. Scott, 28, is on trial for the Oct. 16, 1983, murder of his grandfather, 70-year-old Louis Fox, partly because he was one of only a handful of people who could have slipped into the victim's North Hollywood house without being attacked by Dante, prosecutors said.</s>

<s docid="LA032690-0008" num="52"> The case is not the only one in which a dog's behavior has provided crucial clues.</s>

<s docid="LA032690-0008" num="53"> But most other such cases have involved tracking dogs who led police to suspects.</s>

<s docid="LA050990-0092" num="27"> Stride, an English cocker spaniel, black with a bib of white on his chest, is a certified dope dog.</s>

<s docid="LA050990-0092" num="55"> Fred says "find it," and within minutes Stride discovers a rag stuffed next to the truck's gas tank that bears the scent of some illicit stuff.</s>

<s docid="LA072889-0063" num="12"> Welz sniffed out the armed suspect, who had eluded Los Angeles police officers by hiding under a parked car in Inglewood.</s>

<s docid="LA072889-0063" num="13"> After taking a rap over the head, the dog subdued the suspect until officers arrived.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="17"> By all accounts, young Popeye, a black and white beagle-spaniel mix, is already earning his Alpo.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="18"> Trained to aid police in their search for narcotics secreted in homes, luggage, mail or any other place, Popeye has detected cocaine in a package, marijuana under a mattress and drug-tainted money in a locked steel box.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="19"> U.S. Customs agents frequently seek his help in airport searches, and his trained nose has been in demand by the California Highway Patrol as well.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="20"> Palm Springs High School officials have also enlisted Popeye's help, deploying his talents on student lockers.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="39"> Training began in earnest, and soon he had his debut, alerting officers to a steel box of drug-contaminated money found at a parole violator's home.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="43"> At Beltz's home, Popeye did a dozen or so laps of the yard under a blazing desert sun, and then paused to perform a mock search of a truck with marijuana hidden in the front bumper.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="44"> "Wo est gifte"? said Beltz, as the dog began his frantic hunt.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="45"> The command -- "Where is the poison" -- was in German, the language used to address all city police dogs.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="46"> Twenty-eight seconds later, Popeye had found it.</s>

<s docid="LA070389-0068" num="47"> Visibly pleased with himself, the little mongrel gave a bark and went bounding off across the grass, twirling and jumping, happy to be alive.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="9"> Harris is a dog handler in one of Hawthorne's four canine units, and his German shepherd Urko was run over by a car driven by a robbery suspect fleeing police Tuesday night.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="27"> The incident that took the dog's life began in Lakewood, when a 20-year-old suspect allegedly stole a car from a motorist at a gas station at gunpoint.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="28"> The suspect led police on a chase through several cities.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="29"> Harris and Urko, responding to a call for backup units, went to 130th Street and Hawthorne Boulevard.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="30"> "Me and another guy and our partners blocked the streets with our cars," Harris said.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="31"> "I saw the suspect coming at us real fast, and I saw that he wasn't going to stop.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="32"> So I went back to my car to get my dog out of the way".</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="34"> "He was all keyed up," Harris said.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="35"> "He jumped out of the car looking for a bad guy, and when he realized there was no bad guy out there, he turned around to come back to me.</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="36"> And that's when he got hit".</s>

<s docid="LA113089-0146" num="43"> Richard Garcia was booked on suspicion of robbery and causing injury or death to a police dog, a felony.</s>

<s docid="LA121790-0084" num="10"> Police officials say a dog can search an area in half the time it would take five officers and can uncover hidden narcotics that would otherwise go undetected by humans.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="12"> The scents, extracted from objects on the scene of a crime or from human subjects, could help Rotterdam's police dogs sniff out some of the city's most dangerous criminals.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="15"> "Everybody has a different smell that a dog can recognize," said De Bruin, 48, who has devoted the last 12 years to perfecting the science of collecting and storing human odors.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="19"> When a serious crime, such as a murder or bank robbery, occurs in Rotterdam, De Bruin is called to the scene with his homemade scent-extraction kit.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="20"> He wraps any article bearing traces of the criminal's personal odor in a sterilized cotton cloth and places it in a large plastic ventilation box, equipped with an electric fan.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="21"> As air blows through the box, scent molecules from the object evaporate and are absorbed by the cotton.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="22"> After 20 minutes, the cloth is transferred to an airtight storage jar, labeled with the date and place of the crime, and stored in a room especially reserved for De Bruin's collection.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="29"> In his experiments, dogs have accurately identified people from a scent sample taken three years ago, but De Bruin believes the specimens could last much longer.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="31"> Police have traditionally used trained dogs to help track down or identify criminals, using the scent of an object belonging to the culprit.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="32"> Schaefer said, however, that only highly trained dogs can match a human odor to its owner, and even the most skilled animals make mistakes if improperly handled.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="33"> He said the most commonly used police identification test, in which a dog selects a culprit from a line-up of suspects, is unreliable because humans under stress emit different body odors.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="34"> It was such flaws that spurred De Bruin, who has worked with dogs for more than 30 years, to devise more scientific ways of putting his canine colleagues to work.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="35"> Besides creating his smell bank, De Bruin introduced more sophisticated detection tests.</s>

<s docid="LA100189-0103" num="36"> Instead of a row of people, he presents the dog with a row of glass jars containing cloth odor samples, taken earlier from participants in the test.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="8"> A police officer and his dog foiled a suspected robbery attempt at an Anaheim convenience store early Sunday and arrested four men, one of whom was bitten as he tried to flee.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="9"> Officer Andre Jimenez was on patrol with a department police dog, Falco, when he saw several men standing in front of an open Circle K market at 1080 W.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="10"> La Palma Ave. and a car he deemed suspicious parked alongside the store at about 2:10 a.m., Police Lt. John Cross said.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="11"> Some of the men spotted the police car and began running toward their vehicle, he said.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="12"> One suspect, Ignacio Comonfort Ventura, 21, of Anaheim, ran to the back of the store and was apprehended, Cross said.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="13"> Falco was sent after a second suspect, Raul Avila Romero, 19, of Anaheim, who ran north across La Palma Avenue, Cross said.</s>

<s docid="LA061190-0093" num="14"> The dog caught up to Romero, bit him on the hip, knocked him to the ground and held him until officers could take him into custody.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="8"> Until the arrival of Mattie, Los Angeles arson investigators working the ruins of the historic Pan Pacific Auditorium were stumped.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="9"> The place is so huge they did not know where to put vapor-detection equipment that must be no more than four inches from a source.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="10"> But a few minutes after the 4-year-old black Labrador from Meriden, Conn., began sniffing the floor on Friday, investigators confirmed the presence of numerous spots showing evidence of flammable, volatile liquid.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="11"> Fire Chief Donald O.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="12"> Manning said during a news conference at the Beverly Boulevard site a few hours later that the pattern the dog identified helped arson investigators confirm what they had suspected: Wednesday's fire at the 54-year-old Streamline Moderne arena was set deliberately.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="18"> The use of Mattie, who can detect the presence of 17 flammable liquids at levels far more faint than can electronic probes, was the first use on the West Coast of a dog specially trained to assist arson investigators, according to the fire chief.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="22"> Mattie's handler, Doug Lancelot, a Connecticut State Police trooper, said she is one of five specially trained dogs working with fire departments in the United States.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="23"> He said that she has assisted in the investigation of more than 200 fires and that laboratory analyses have confirmed her scentings about 75% of the time.</s>

<s docid="LA052789-0097" num="24"> He said her nose, which can detect flammable vapors in concentrations measured in parts per billion, is about 1,000 times more sensitive than electronic probes that can pick up vapor concentrations only in parts per million.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="10"> A bank robbery suspect led police on a wild chase through three cities Thursday before abandoning his wrecked car and fleeing on foot, only to cornered by a snarling police dog.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="12"> The incident began shortly after 2 p.m. when a man walked into the Security Pacific Bank branch at 2516 E. Chapman Ave. and robbed a teller while simulating possession of a weapon, police said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="13"> The robber fled in a white Chevrolet Camaro driven by a second man, police said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="14"> A few minutes later, Fullerton Police Officer Steve Williams spotted the getaway car traveling west on the Riverside Freeway.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="15"> Williams, along with detectives from Anaheim, pulled the suspects over when they left the freeway at Brookhurst Street, police said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="16"> The driver of the Camaro was ordered out of the car and arrested at gunpoint, but the passenger managed to slip behind the wheel and drive off, Fullerton Police Sgt. Ken Kepner said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="17"> The suspect, who was later identified as Kenneth Lewis Crader, 27, of Buena Park, sped west on La Palma Avenue, police said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="18"> As the suspect's car approached busy Beach Boulevard near Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, it collided with another car.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="20"> The crash, however, did not stop Crader, who sped away, police said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="24"> Meanwhile, near the corner of Polk and Grand avenues in Anaheim, Crader decided to ditch the badly damaged Camaro and flee on foot, police said.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="25"> Crader hopped fences and ran through back yards as police cordoned off the neighborhood.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="26"> A Cypress police dog was brought in to help search for the suspect.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="27"> Within a few minutes, the dog found Crader in a tool shed behind a house on the 3100 block of Tyler Avenue.</s>

<s docid="LA081090-0081" num="28"> Crader surrendered after the dog bit him on his right arm, witnesses said.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="14"> During his 5 1/2 years on the force, Harco, a German shepherd, was responsible for finding $2 million in drug money, 80 kilograms of cocaine and 2 kilograms of marijuana.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="15"> The city also credits Harco with searching 239 buildings and being instrumental in eight arrests.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="16"> But more significant, Chang said, was the dog's impact as a deterrent.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="17"> "I can't count the number of times an incident has been avoided purely because of his presence," Chang said.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="18"> "We've had a number of suspects give up when we told them we were sending in Harco".</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="19"> Harco's teeth proved to be powerful persuaders, but it is the dog's nose that Chang admires the most.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="23"> In one case, Harco indicated to Chang that suspects and stolen property were outside the area Chang and other officers had decided to search.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="24"> Chang ignored the dog, but after giving up the search he let Harco satisfy his curiosity.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="25"> The suspects and the stolen property were quickly discovered.</s>

<s docid="LA052890-0098" num="29"> Imported from Germany, the dog was 4 1/2 years old and had undergone obedience, protection and tracking training since he was a puppy.</s>

<s docid="LA071890-0120" num="48"> On the ground, Brown said, the Secret Service will conduct sweeps of the nine-acre library grounds with bomb-sniffing dogs and other bomb-detection apparatus.</s>

