Franklin County dog is able to detect child pornography

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.

Ruger, a 17-month-old Labrador retriever, came to the department on Sept. 7. He will be used in a K9 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 following a child pornography investigation.

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 electronic-sniffing dog in Ohio and one of less 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 that, said Dave Masterson, the sheriff ’s director of administrative services.

Azzi has been training dogs for more than 35 years. He said training a dog to sniff out hard drives is no different than training them to detect cocaine or a decomposing body.

“You isolate an odor,” he said. “You’ve got to find the right dog for the job. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Ruger came from a hunting dog kennel “out west,” Azzi said, and was raised among children. Azzi said Ruger could be used as a therapy dog for victims of pedophilia. His drive to hunt made him ideal for sniffing out electronics. Azzi imprinted the smell on tennis balls — Ruger’s favorite toy — by sealing electronics in a plastic container with the ball.

The smell had to be specific so that Ruger wouldn’t try to hunt down the wrong electronics, he said.

“We’re looking for thumb drives, disks, that type of stuff,” he said.