DRUG DOGS GIVE STUDENTS PAUSE

Zeek and Harley don't know a thing about illegal drugs, but they'll do
anything to find them. When they search schools across Oklahoma for
alcohol and drugs, they're doing it just for fun. Actually, it's for
the fun of a ball or a squeak toy, their reward for finding the contraband.

"When they find that odor, they get to play," Nedean Geurin said.
"This is what they live for."

Zeek, a 3-year-old chocolate Labrador, and Harley, a 4-year-old
Labrador saved from a city pound, are two of the 20 canine sleuths
used by Dogs Against Drugs Inc. The Broken Arrow nonprofit
organization is hired to conduct searches and to provide drug
education at about 100 schools across Oklahoma, said Geurin, a
co-director.

Zeek and several of his human co-workers with Dogs Against Drugs were
in Oklahoma City on Tuesday as part of Gov. Frank Keating's Safe
Schools Summit. The summit -- which provided information and
motivation for educators, parents and students -- featured addresses
by sports figures, motivational speakers and celebrities on how to
make schools safer.

At Dogs Against Drugs, the dream is to make kids stop using drugs
altogether, Geurin said. "That's kind of the fairy tale," she said.

The reality is that dog searches make students worry enough about
being caught with drugs or alcohol that most students who use them
decide not to bring them to school.

"If you can keep it out of school, then maybe you're making a
difference," Geurin said.

Schools pay $45 to $60 an hour to have the dogs sniff classrooms,
lockers, gyms, cars in parking lots and anything on school grounds
other than the students themselves. Alcohol is the most common
contraband found by the dogs, who scratch at something when they
detect the target scent.

The second-most common contraband is marijuana, which is typically
found in rest rooms because that's where kids hide it when the dogs
show up.

So students don't know when they're coming, Dogs Against Drugs
handlers vary their visit patterns and keep their schedules secret
even from their families.

Whenever the dogs indicate drugs might be present, handlers discreetly
report those findings to school administrators. It's up to
administrators to decide whether to investigate such findings, Geurin
said.

The dogs are not used to check students.