ARCHDALE GETS ITS FIRST POLICE DOG

ARCHDALE -- Archdale's newest officer is willing to work for dog chow -- or
maybe an orange ball.

The police department's newest officer is a 2-year-old tan Belgian Malinois
named Rex. He joined the department two weeks ago. He began his local law
enforcement training Monday at the High Point Police Department.

Rex is being trained to search for evidence, sniff out children lost in the
woods, track jail escapees or people trapped under rubble. He worked on
drug detection Monday at an abandoned building on Millis Street in High
Point. He got an orange ball to chew on whenever he stopped at the right spot.

Rex should be finished with his training and ready to work the streets of
Archdale by the end of the month, said Tim Tonsor, the K-9 training officer
for the High Point Police Department who is overseeing Rex's training.

Many of the law enforcement agencies in this area and across the country
use dogs like Rex for police work, Tonsor said. Belgian Malinois are bred
in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, specifically as work dogs that are suited
for law enforcement, he said.

All of the commands that Rex knows are in Dutch. That means his handler,
John Pickering, has had to learn words like seta (sit), lout (bark,) off
legan (lay down) and other commands.

"It's easier for us to learn a few Dutch commands than to have to totally
retrain the dog," Pickering said.

Rex is Archdale's first police dog. The department used drug seizure money
and local donations to pay for the $6,000 animal, said police Chief Gary
LewAllen. It should cost about $600 a year to feed Rex and take him for
medical checkups, Tonsor said.

The Archdale department had been using dogs from High Point, the Randolph
County Sheriff's Department or the local state prison when it needed an
animal to help in a search, LewAllen said.

Dogs from other agencies were called in maybe three to four times last
year, Pickering said. He expects to use Rex at least 100 times or more next
year.

"You don't want to call in someone else's dog and pull them out of a city,"
Pickering said.

Pickering said he plans to try to fatten Rex up a bit -- maybe add back
those 10 pounds or so that he lost while he was boarded at a Denver, Ind.,
kennel.

Pickering and his 5-year-old son are bonding with the dog, which lives with
them.