Manatee detectives adopt Bishop shelter dog, train her to detect electronics

MANATEE -- Only a handful of dogs in the United States are trained to sniff out electronics, and now Manatee County has one.

Manatee County Sheriff's Office officials adopted Gia, a 1-year-old German shepherd mix, from Bishop Animal Shelter in Bradenton last August. At heart, Gia is still the playful and curious puppy, but now she has the ability to sniff out electronics, aiding in the investigation of internet crimes such as child pornography.

"The detectives will go in, they'll have a search team, and they'll search the property. And after their search, she'll go in to come around and see if anything was missed by us, or if there's anything we can't get to," said detective Joni Zimmermann, who investigates crimes against children and is Gia's handler. "People will hide this stuff. They don't want us to find what we're looking for. Her nose is going to go further than we can with our hands."

Lt. Dennis Cunningham, head of the sheriff's office canine unit, said the Crimes Against Children Unit came up with the idea to get an electronic-sniffing dog last year and came to him. The investigation of Jared Fogle, the infamous former Subway spokesman caught with child pornography, was assisted by an electronic-sniffing

dog named Bear.

When Cunningham looked into buying one, he found the dog would cost at least $15,000. So he and Zimmermann started looking around local shelters to find a qualified dog candidate they could train themselves.

"For years, I've been wanting to explore picking a dog from a shelter and teaching it what we needed as far as odor work," Cunningham said. "This presented that opportunity."

That led them to Bishop, where Gia had been dropped off as a stray. Samantha Dominis, spokeswoman for Bishop, said Gia was anxious when she was at the shelter, which is common.

Watching her with Zimmermann, Dominis said it was obvious she loved her new owner. Gia is the second dog adopted from Bishop to be used in law enforcement.

"She is so bonded to Joni, so incredibly bonded. If she walks away just five feet, Gia is on her and doesn't want her to leave," Dominis said. "And that's something we've noticed in shelter dogs. They do bond very closely with their adopters."

Cunningham said Zimmermann and Gia bonded instantly so they decided it was a good fit, even though Cunningham was originally looking for a dog a little older. Gia has been in training ever since, which involves applying a scent unique to electronics to toys, hiding them so she'll sniff them out and rewarding her for the find. That way, when Gia is brought on investigations she'll smell hidden electronics and think it's her toys, so she'll try to find them.

Past suspects have been creative in how they hide evidence, Cunningham said. They've found items in fake outlets in the walls and in fake bottles of shaving cream with secret compartments that you can buy online.

Gia's training is still ongoing, but she has been on one investigation scene so far. Zimmermann said Gia checked for any electronics deputies might have missed, but couldn't find any more.

"There wasn't anything left in the house that was hidden," Zimmermann said. "But I'm fairly confident that if there was she would've found it."

Gia is one of 10 canines the sheriff's office uses. Nine others are used for patrol and odor detection of other items such as narcotics. Not many dogs in the United States can do electronics detection because it's such a new training, Zimmermann said, but it isn't any more complicated or difficult compared with other odor detection training.

Gia is different from patrol canines, however, because she doesn't have to assist in apprehending suspects and therefore does not need to be as disciplined.

"She is just odor detection and doesn't do any bite work. So she doesn't need the kind of discipline that the other canine sheriff dogs need as far as commands and everything like that," Zimmermann said. "In fact, we encourage that she's curious and she wants to do other things and sniff everything, because that's her job and that's what we need her to do. So we don't want to limit that in any way."

Cunningham said the program made a lot of sense in terms of helping the shelter and being more cost effective for the sheriff's office.

He's already started training another Southeastern Guide Dog "dropout" to be a ballistics-sniffing dog, tracking down firearms and ammunition. That dog is still in the beginning stages of training.

"Fiscal responsibility is huge these days, free versus $20,000," Cunningham said. "I hope this is a great example for other agencies, maybe to think 'check your shelters,' because they're overloaded with dogs. Why not find a use? And as you can tell, Gia is very happy."

Kate Irby, Herald online/political reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7055. You can follow her on Twitter @KateIrby

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 11:25 PM with the headline "Manatee detectives adopt Bishop shelter dog, train her to detect electronics ."