Meet Belle, VA police dog extraordinaire

German Shorthaired Pointers typically aren’t the breed you think of when you hear about police dogs. Often, you’ll see German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers or Belgian Malinois among the top choices for law enforcement.

However, German Shorthaired Pointers are becoming a lot more common, said Sgt. Nathan Dufault, police officer at Boston VA.

German Shorthaired Pointer Belle was eight months old when she arrived. She comes from a family of bird hunting dogs and is a great choice for police work at VA due to her breed’s incredible aptitude for tracking.

“Tracking and trailing is definitely her strong suit,” said Dufault. “She is a tracking star. She loves it. When we get her outside and tell her she must go find somebody, she’s happier than my 6-year-old at Christmas. That has a lot to do with her breed and her natural instinct of finding and chasing birds.”

Aced her graduation test!

Dog tracking critical in winter weather

Dufault emphasized that this would be critical in an emergency.

“If we can get a good last known location and a clean scent sample, that’s a huge time difference between having police officers do a search or having a dog do a track or a trail of the whole campus,” Dufault said. “In New England, if somebody wanders off in the middle of winter, temperatures drop very quickly, so time is critical.”

Dufault and Belle completed their training and certification earlier this year. The 16-week course was in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, and provided certification through the American Police Canine Association.

“The certification is only good if it’s me and her together because we spend the entire training learning how to read our dog’s behavior and how to read the surroundings,” Dufault said.

Graduation results made for happy policeman

“One of my happiest moments with Belle was right before we had graduated,” he said. “It was a bad day out—raining, super windy, and with tracking, the conditions matter a lot. I was one of the last ones to go after no one else was able to complete their tracks that day. After about two and a half miles, I thought for sure she was running me in circles.

“Suddenly, she’s [Belle] pulling. I take this corner and she’s sitting at the feet of one of my buddies from school. That really solidified the fact for me that you need to trust your dog.”

Belle is trained in both tracking people and narcotics. She’ll sit or lay down when she finds a scent, which is known as a passive alert. The indication is slightly different between detecting narcotics versus finding a person. If she’s found narcotics, she’ll lock up, sit and stare, look at the handler and then look back at where she thinks the odor is coming from. Both Dufault and Belle are required to maintain at least eight hours of training a month on both topics.

K9 vehicles are specially designed for dogs

Dufault also talked about K9 vehicles.

“They’re designed for her [Belle] comfort. She’s got a constant supply of fresh water. Most canine vehicles always have one or both of their windows down. It’s not just for temperature regulation,” he said. “It allows the outside scents in, so she’s always acclimated with what’s going on outside. Scent work is so time sensitive and so dependent on the circumstances. The sooner we know the higher chance of a positive outcome there is—especially if it’s after hours, nights or weekends—the sooner we know, the better our odds are of getting a good scent for a person or narcotics. The other big thing we have to tell people is if you’re going to request the canine, leave the scene alone and do not touch anything. When you touch the item that has the scent on it, my dog will then start tracking you instead.”