SOUTHSIDE ADDS NEW FACE TO FORCE - A DRUG DOG

SOUTHSIDE - The Southside Police Department has spent the last month
welcoming their newest officer - a golden retriever named Phoenix. The
19-month-old dog was trained in Austin, Texas, and will be used to search
for narcotics. "He's trained on cocaine, heroine, marijuana and
methamphetamine," Roger Cox, a Southside police officer and the dog's
handler, said. Cox said he and the dog have already received a few calls to
search for drugs and, so far, Phoenix has proven successful. "We've already
gotten some drug hits with the dog," he said. "He alerts on drugs
aggressively - he scratches, bites or barks depending on the situation."
Phoenix and Cox work as partners and the dog stays with him at all times.

He lives with Cox and even rides around with him in a special patrol car.
"We had the rear seat removed from my car and there is a platform where the
rear seat used to be," Cox said. "He loves it back there." Like Phoenix,
Cox is also relatively new to the Southside force.

He has been with the department since October. "I was with the United
Nations police task force in Kosovo and I was going back, but chief (Wayne
Garmon) asked if I would be interested to stay and work with the dog," he
said. Cox first met Phoenix about two months ago, when he joined the dog
for training in Texas. Phoenix had already undergone several weeks of
training when Cox and other humans joined the dogs for their final two
weeks of the session. Although some of his colleagues had bomb dogs in
Kosovo, Cox said he has never worked with a dog in this capacity before. He
said the dog, which is registered with the American Kennel Club, was
already named when he got him. "There were eight people in the (training)
class and each got a dog when they first got there, but we changed dogs
three times to see what kind of rapport we had with each dog," he said. Cox
said the teacher then evaluated how each dog and human interacted.=07
"Phoenix and I got along excellent," he said. "We kind of picked each
other." Cox said he works with Phoenix on a daily basis to maintain and
reinforce his drug-searching abilities. "He gets daily training on
different drugs," he said. "And we do retrieval drills daily for exercise."
Phoenix doesn't have anything in his kennel except for food and water, Cox
said. He said Phoenix only gets his toy when he sniffs out drugs. Cox uses
a special toy called a "Kong," a red cone-like rubber toy shaped like a
snowman.

He said this is a special tool used with drug dogs and Phoenix has come to
recognize it as his reward for completing a successful search. "He gets the
toy when he finds drugs and he knows that when he finds drugs, he gets his
toy," Cox said. Although Phoenix is used only for narcotics now, Cox said
he might be trained as a tracking dog later. "He is still a young dog now
but once he works on drugs for six months or so, we might start working to
train him as a tracking dog," he said. Cox said Phoenix has an "outstanding
nose," and will only get better as he gets older. Cox, who is also a
certified D.A.R.E. instructor, said he is hoping to be able to do some
community projects with Phoenix to introduce the public to the dog. "We are
planning to do some programs in schools with Phoenix and we hope to
associate him with the D.A.R.E. program at school," he said.