At the May 20, 2009 Board of Education meeting, the Board approved a contract with Guide Dogs of the Desert (GDD) to provide FUSD with a replacement dog for the recently retired Copper.  Tai (pronounced Tay), a four year old Labrador Retriever, has moved in with his new partner, Officer Norma Bautista, and her family, and will soon begin drug and weapon detection training.

As part of our contract with GDD, Scenturion Consulting will be providing all basic drug detection and gun powder detection training for Tai, free of charge to the district.  He will be trained to detect a wide variety of contraband substances, like marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and opium, varieties of explosives, handguns and other weapons, ammunitions, home-made pie bombs, weapons, and alcoholic beverages – none of which we want on or near our campuses.  We’ve also found that the mere presence of a detection dog on campus is a significant deterrent for possession of contraband.

Detection dogs are a friendlier alternative to the more aggressive police K-9s. Labrador Retrievers, like Tai, are the perfect choice for detection dogs, which are trained to detect, not attack (they are “passive alert” which means that they sit upon detection of a specified odor).  Dogs possess impressive olfactory abilities. For each drop of odor detected by a dog, the human nose would require 1,000 to 10,000 drops of odor, veterinarians say.

Officer Bautista and Tai have already started some very preliminary work together by visiting some of our campuses, when school is not in session.  They also visited Randall Pepper Elementary School in a non-official capacity, just to see how well he would do around a lot of kids.  Officer Bautista said, “He did great!”  No surprise there!  Labs are non-aggressive, non-threatening, and very social dogs. They love the attention they receive while giving demonstrations and working around students.

It was a heart-wrenching decision for Officer Bautista when she found out that her previous K-9 partner of two years, Copper, would need to retire from active duty due to a medical condition.  If she kept Copper, she would not be able to continue with the K-9 program, which she has really come to love. It would have been agony for poor Copper to watch Norma head off to work every day with a different dog, leaving him behind.  Happily for everyone, Officer Dennis Barnett and his family offered to adopt Copper and he has integrated wonderfully to their family. (To see a fun video of Copper in his new home, click here.)

Tai came to live with Officer Bautista, her fifteen-year-old son, and their pug dog in May. Said Officer Bautista, “Tai is really laid back but when you take out a dog toy, he lights up!  He is different than Copper.  He is much more mellow.  But his nose is always going!  He’s a really cool dog.”

After the 2009-10 school year gets underway, School Police Services will conduct another “Name the K-9 Contest” with our elementary school students for Tai’s official police dog name.  Details of the contest will soon follow, so stay tuned!

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