Dog will sniff out drugs at Seneca Valley

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Post-Gazette

By Ken McCarthy

Two dogs are joining the Jackson police force, and one will walk the halls with students on the Seneca Valley School District campus.

Jackson police have added a drug-sniffing dog to the force, and police Chief Len Keller said the dog would be in school regularly.

"It will greatly enhance what we can do over there," he said, referring to the campus, the site of the intermediate high and senior high schools. "The dog will be a constant presence."

The dog, now in training with its handler, will patrol with the district's student resource officer, Chief Keller said.

Linda Andreassi, Seneca Valley communications director, said the dog would be used in the school district's random and unannounced drug searches and could be used, if necessary, to help track a missing student.

"We have approximately 4,000 people on the campus when we are in session," she said. "Therefore, we are committed to working with the [police] on all efforts that will help provide a safe environment where educational goals are met."

The school district donated $1,000 from its Safe and Drug Free Schools grant money to help buy the dog and the equipment needed for it, she said.

Chief Keller said the dog, named Hutch, would not be limited to drug detection but also could help with crowd control, building searches and tracking.

Having a dog that is capable of tracking could speed up searches for missing people, he said, noting that the department had been involved in searches for people who have Alzheimer's disease.

Jackson Supervisor Tom West said that having the secondary campus within the township made the decision to add a drug-sniffing dog to the police department an easy one.

"It's a no-brainer," he said. "We need that drug dog."

In the fall, the police department will add a second dog, trained to find bombs, Chief Keller said.

The bomb-sniffing dog will be the first in the county, he said. Other departments -- Evans City, Saxonburg and the sheriff's department -- have drug-sniffing dogs, he said.

The bomb-sniffing dog is being funded through a federal Homeland Security grant obtained by the Butler County Emergency Management Agency, Chief Keller said. The grant program is providing 16 such dogs to Pittsburgh and the surrounding region.

Chief Keller said the township's cost of having the dogs would be negligible because of the grants and donations from businesses.

He has always been a proponent of having dogs on the force, the chief said.

"People react to a dog much differently than they do to a person," he said. "And from a public relations perspective, everyone loves and pays attention to them."