By Rick Rouan, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – The newest member of the Franklin County sheriff’s office can sniff out flash drives, SD cards and other electronics that criminals use to hide child pornography.
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Ruger, a 17-month-old Labrador retriever (right), came to the department on Sept. 7. He will be used in a K-9 unit meant to sniff out crime for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
A similar dog was used to find evidence in the case against Jared Fogle, the former Subway restaurant spokesman who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted on child pornography charges.
The dogs are trained to detect a single chemical found in electronic devices such as flash drives. The odor isn’t as strong as those found in drugs or explosives, but a dog’s strong sense of smell still can pick it up, said Jerry Azzi, who trained Ruger.
“It takes time,” Azzi said. “There is an odor to everything on this planet.”
Ruger is the first electronics-sniffing dog in Ohio and one of fewer than two dozen across the country, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The sheriff’s office bought Ruger for $11,000 from Azzi International Service for Dogs in Delaware County, but the federal Homeland Security Investigations division under ICE covered half of that, said Dave Masterson, the sheriff’s director of administrative services.