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Show New Utah - Thursday, August 15, 2002 - Page 13 Amazing K-9 duo Rusty helps sheriffs search for drugs By Debra Hart The Utah County Sheriffs Sher-iffs Office, or the UCSO, has a powerful tool riding in its back seat. His name is Rusty and he sports a glossy, rust and black marbled coat. This 8-year-old, 87 lb. wonder, ranks extremely high in tracking skills, physical attributes and apprehension skills. "We (UCSO) were very lucky to get him," says Deputy Rick Shumway, Rusty's partner. Prior to joining the canine program, Shumway a. V III ltiTil iiiiSfilliiTfifi.iit i Ti Deputy Rick Shumway and rJ . Jit's m r 1 ltitioi;:J ()!iuut . flcelncluf a7t. "rnel worked as an agitator with other police dogs. When he heard about an opening in the program, he decided to apply. Shumway has worked with UCSO for five years. Rusty is his first police dog and has been his partner for the past 10 months. The two work the north end of Utah County. Rusty stays by Shumway's side 24-hours a day, seven days a week. "He's kind of a one-person dog," says Shumway. Rusty is fed and cared for by only Shumway and exclusively follows his commands. com-mands. Shumway speaks to Rusty in Dutch. He is after all, a Dutch Shepard from Holland. According to Shumway, I - ' - , Photo by Debra Hart his K-9 dog Rusty. in order to eliminate confusion confu-sion while working in the field, most police dogs receive their commands in German, Dutch or Czech. For example, if they yell "stop" to a suspect, a dog trained with English commands com-mands may stop, too. Shumway says 85 percent per-cent of the duo's calls are drug related and has noted a marked increase of drug use in Utah County in the last five years. "We are basically using the dog's nose to find drugs," he says. Rusty is also trained in "apprehension work" or finding hiding suspects. The pair often perform deployments deploy-ments with the SWAT team. "He gives one more use of force option with apprehension apprehen-sion work," says Shumway. "We've had a lot of finds we would have never found had he not been there." There are currently seven full-time and one part-time dogs working on patrol in Utah County. UCSO has five and American Ameri-can Fork's police department depart-ment has two dogs. Orem's police department depart-ment is currently doing a pilot program with a narcotics nar-cotics dog (no apprehension). apprehen-sion). "Their hearing is 14 times better than ours," says Shumway. "Their sense of smell is one to six million times better bet-ter than ours." Most police dogs are trained in apprehension work in Europe. Shumway says it is a sport in Europe to train "apprehension dogs." The additional drug training is taught once the dogs are in the states. When selecting a new dog, they look for courage, l LA . - i j , ' 1 V - . I I , - f . - .,., r t ' Photos by Debra Hart Officer Damon Faught, of the Lehi Police Department, acts as an agitator in a drill with Rusty and Deputy Shumway. Faught is wearing a "bite suit," which is designed to protect pro-tect the agitator in practice drills. play drive and prey drive. "We'll go out and test them (using a bite suit, different dif-ferent toys and subjecting them to gunfire)," says Shumway. "When you look at what the dogs do for us," he says, "for every hour that I deploy my dog, it has been proven to save five hours per officer on the scene. (If 10 officers are working an investigation, investiga-tion, a police dog can save 50 hours)." When the pair is not working apprehension or drug related calls, they work regular calls with UCSO. And sometimes, they get to rest at home. Hart can be contacted at Leosbanjoaol.com v v; n |