By: Antoinette Grajeda
Inside the Randal Tyson track center on a Tuesday morning you’ll find athletes with four legs instead of two. It’s here University of Arkansas Police Department officers like Corporal David Nguyen train their canine counterparts.
“If they don’t train, they lose that skill and we don’t want that,” Nguyen said.
Training UAPD’s two bomb dogs and one drug dog involves hiding drugs and explosive material, and then allowing the animals to detect the odor. To indicate they’ve found the hidden material, the dogs use a technique called passive alert.
“When they’re alert they don’t scratch, they don’t bark, they just sit,” Nguyen said.
One of the keys to training is making sure the dogs have fun, UAPD’s canine supervisor Sergeant Jeff Shetlar said.
“They have to love doing what they’re doing, otherwise they’ll kind of quit on it,” Shetlar said.
There are only a handful of bomb dogs in the state so UAPD’s canine officers sometimes serve outside Fayetteville city limits.
“Athletics purchased our dogs and athletics has basically said if anybody in the state needs them, you guys go,” Shetlar said.
On campus, the canines patrol men’s basketball and football games. Following the Paris terrorist attacks, security has been heightened which means longer hours.
“Because people are a little more on edge after something like that everything becomes suspicious,” Shetlar said.
The extra work doesn’t bother Sgt. Shetlar because he said he wants to make sure everything’s protected.
“Hopefully it’s all precautionary,” he said. “I hope my dog never finds anything outside of training.”