Canines at Work
by Joan Allen

They track missing children and Alzheimer’s patients in the snowy woods, apprehend armed robbery suspects, detect drugs in cars, and respond to bomb threats at sporting events. It’s all in a day’s work for the Maryland State Police K-9 Unit, which is considered by many to be one of the best and largest in the United States.

Sergeant Eric Fogle, commander of the Maryland State Police K-9 Unit, oversees the program. “The canine unit is comprised of 31 handlers and 43 dogs. Each canine unit is broken into five separate programs which include Patrol Dogs, Drug Dogs, Bomb Dogs, Bloodhounds, and Evidence Recovery.”

Each handler must first be a Maryland State Police Trooper no longer on probationary status before their application is accepted and they can transfer into the program. There is an interview and resume process, and once accepted into the program, the handler goes through a training school with their dog based on the discipline for which they have been selected.

For example, Patrol Dog handlers attend an 18-week school, CDS (Controlled Dangerous Substance or Drug) handlers attend a 14-week school, Explosive Detection handlers attend a 14-week school and Bloodhound handlers attend a 10-week school.

Based on the special talents of the canine’s breed, each dog is assigned to a specific job. Patrol dogs or police dogs, usually German Shepherds or Belgian Malinois, are trained to bite, search buildings, protect handlers and can be cross trained to do drug or bomb detection. Single purpose dogs - Labs, Golden Retrievers or Shepherds - are trained only for drug searches. Bomb detection dogs are generally Labs, Shepherds, Golden Retrievers and Malinois. Bloodhounds are search and rescue dogs.

Fogle, a nationally recognized Bloodhound trainer and winner of the Hal Foss Award from the National Association of Search and Rescue, teaches all of the Bloodhound canine units in Maryland and travels around the country to do search and rescue and train with police Bloodhound teams. Each year, the Maryland State Police Bloodhound teams handle about 200 requests for missing persons or criminal tracks.

“Bloodhounds only do one thing, and that’s track,” says Fogle. “Maryland State Police helicopters often transport the Bloodhound teams during emergencies. A Bloodhound unit can arrive on a scene almost anywhere in the state within an hour.” Corporal Robert McCormick, a supervisor in the canine unit for the Maryland State Police, has worked with K-9 Toby, an 8-year-old male Bloodhound, for seven years. Toby is a search and rescue dog for tracking people. He holds the record for most finds for all dogs currently active in the program.

McCormick says, “Last year in Montgomery County, an elderly lady was missing for 24 hours. I conditioned a track with Toby [ had the dog sniff an article of clothing containing the scent of the person to be found] 25 hours after she was reported missing. Toby found her one mile from her house in a swamp area, still alive.”

Toby, who was originally rescued from a Bloodhound rescue, will retire this year. “He’ll continue to live with me and my wife and two children, and K-9 Kemo, a narcotics detection German Shepherd. My 4-year-old and 1-year-old kids look at Toby as a big old drooling, stinking teddy bear. When he’s at home, he likes lying around; typical hound dog behavior. Bloodhounds are also non-aggressive. They’ll jump up on you and slobber on you when they find you.”

Trooper First Class Barry Stonestreet has had K-9 Jillie, a Bloodhound bought from a breeder in Michigan, for two years. So far, Jillie has had one criminal find and one non-criminal find. Stonestreet says, “There was an alarm at a house in Carroll County. When troopers responded to the call, they saw the house had been broken into and a bad guy had run out the back door. They pursued him on foot but lost him. Perimeter vehicles observed him run across the road. He gave a foot chase again and the troopers lost him. Jillie and I were called in. Once I got there, the trooper said he last saw the suspect at the corner of the house. Jillie trailed the person through a hedgerow into the next yard, which was lined by pine trees. She was wagging her tail like she does in training, and that showed the person was there. But when she indicated, I couldn’t find anybody. She went through the trees to the other side and indicated, and there was the guy hiding under a tree branch. He was charged with that particular burglary, and later he and his wife were charged with 12 burglaries. Several thousand dollars worth of stolen property was found in his house.”

Fogle says there are many other heroic Maryland State police dogs. K-9 Cash, an 8-and-a-half year-old German Shepherd, had eight arrests in 2008, the highest number in the Maryland State Police K-9 Unit. Cash’s handler, Trooper First Class Bernard Donovan, says, “Cash is heroic in my eyes.”


Donovan says one of Cash’s most interesting criminal apprehensions took place at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Elkton. “I monitor the police radio in the sheriff’s office and heard a call about a robbery. I was only a few blocks away. From years of experience I have learned to loop around the side street behind the business rather than drive to the front. I saw a car parked there in a residential neighborhood. The driver pulled off in his car and ran through a stop sign. I turned on the emergency light and he took off. I was on a half-mile pursuit. Then I grabbed Cash out of his cage and jumped out with him. The guy started to run. I told the guy to stop. Cash started barking, which is what he’s trained to do, and the guy went straight for the ground. He had the money and a gun on him and everything was recovered from the robbery.”

If Donovan hadn’t had Cash with him he may have used his gun to stop the perpetrator and avoid serious personal injury. “Just seeing and hearing him [Cash] makes criminals submit to arrest.”

K-9 Kilo, a 3-year-old male black Lab, is also a hero; he’s a record-breaking drug dog in the Maryland State Police K-9 Unit.

On one stop alone, Trooper First Class Colleen McCurdy and Kilo assisted in the seizure of over 490 pounds of marijuana, the largest amount of marijuana ever seized on I-95 and the second largest seizure in Maryland. McCurdy says, “I stopped a van for speeding. Once I got to the car and talked to the driver, I had a suspicion that something was going on. The guy was unarmed and didn’t have much information because he said it wasn’t his car. I called other troopers to back me up. I walked up to the van. I didn’t give Kilo a command; he searched on his own. He sat in the back of the van. The 490 pounds of marijuana was underneath the blanket.”

That night, Kilo - her partner and house mate - got an extra treat and a hamburger for dinner. McCurdy says, “Kilo doesn’t know if he’s found an ounce of marijuana or 490 pounds; all he really cares about is his ball.” McCurdy’s favorite story about Kilo isn’t about the drug bust. She says he has many of the same mannerisms as her heroic K-9 Trooper, a Golden Retriever, who died in 2008.

“I found Kilo at the SPCA just as he was about to be put to sleep. Kilo had some big shoes to fill. Trooper was pretty awesome, but Kilo took to me really well. He was obedient and learned drug work. We finished the training class in eight weeks. It was just him and me. He learned to alert to seven different odors of narcotics: cocaine, hash, marijuana, ecstasy, meth amphetamine, heroin, and black tar heroin.

“Kilo is an awesome dog, too. He does a lot of things similar to Trooper, silly things like when you give him a treat. He goes to the exact same place in the yard to eat it as Trooper did. Kilo works with the same commands as Trooper. It’s a passive response. When they find the drugs, they’re trained to stop and sit at the location, the source of drugs. Then we reward the dog with a toy. Instead of just sitting, Trooper used to put his paw out where he smelled the narcotics if he didn’t get his toy fast enough. Kilo does the same thing.

“Like Trooper, Kilo likes homemade cookies. Kilo gets all excited and runs around the kitchen when he smells them. I just give him a little bit. He would like to have the whole plate but he only gets one or two. It’s like having Trooper again.”

McCurdy says working and living with her canine partner is the best part of her job. “It’s a lot more work than a trooper who just goes home after work, but I get to go to work every day with my best friend.”