LBCC welcomes durg sniffing dog

Officer Davis lets Hutch lead him to the suspicious material.Photo by Alyssa Archer 

LBCC will soon be the new training area for Hutch and his trainer, Officer Aaron Davis of the Albany police department. Hutch, a drug-sniffing dog, is a three-year-old Belgian Malinois who was most likely bred in Holland.

When Hutch was found, he was reported as a coyote hanging around a gas station just outside of Los Angeles.  An officer from Medford, Rob Havice, flew down to evaluate the dog. He found that Hutch came from fine breeding – the kind you would find in Europe, where the best police dogs are from.
Officer Havice brought Hutch back to Oregon, where the Albany Police Department took control of him on Labor Day 2010.

Officer Davis, who has over 18 years of experience in law enforcement and spent seven years as a detective investigating narcotics manufacture, distribution, and trafficking in Albany, was selected to be the dog’s trainer.  Davis went to the Border Patrol’s K9 center near Fort Bliss, Texas, for a six-week course in dog handling.

“The class had 34 border patrol agents and me,” says Davis. “One of these things is not like the other.”
The border patrol does some of the hardest police training in America. According to Davis, the border patrol has graduated 2,000 dogs though its program.
Out of the 18 drives that dogs have, Hutch has four attributes and three character traits that make him a great drug-sniffing dog. He has trainability, is active and playful, has the desire to hunt, retrieve, and play, and can detect air scents.

When asked to describe his relationship with Hutch, Davis said “I’m the pack leader,” and that they get along very well. Hutch is a very friendly dog.
Davis went on to say, “He would very easily be a great pet, but that’s not his job. His job is to find drugs.” Hutch is trained to smell cocaine, meth, heroine, and marijuana. Hutch was never trained as a patrol dog, so he isn’t violent in any way.

Patrol dogs do protection work, tracking work, and pursuit. Drug-sniffing dogs are called detection dogs because they do just that – detect. There are many different kinds of detection dogs, from drug-sniffing dogs like Hutch, to bomb-, accelerant- and even agriculture-sniffing dogs. All these kinds of dogs do their part in law enforcement around the nation.
Hutch allows for the APD to do further investigations. He is a great tool to build probable cause in criminal investigations.

“He is also a great labor-saving device,” says Davis. “He can search a greater area than people can. He won’t find scales or guns, but he will find the drugs.”

“Detection dog training is entirely based on positive reinforcement. This is unlike most law enforcement; you don’t get pulled over because you do something right or to get a great citizen award.
In detection dog training, he gets an award instead of getting punished, unlike most law enforcement.” Davis goes on to say “Hutch exists for one purpose, and he loves is job.”

When asked how he felt about his job, Davis was nothing but filled with joy when he described his work. “I have a partner who is happy to see me every morning. In 18 years of law enforcement I was looking for a challenge. It wasn’t easy, but if it was I wouldn’t do it.”