PRINTOn the Job: K-9 Unit
Q&A with Officer Ron Hall
LILLIAN J. KELLY
August 5, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
Ron Hall and his canine companion, Leah, work as a team to find drugs that have been stashed in cars and homes. Collecting more than $2 million in cash and street value of illegal substances such as marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin for the city in the past three years, Hall and Leah have been what some might call effective at “finding.” “Working with her is the best job in the entire department,” Hall says. “She makes me look good.”
How much training did you have to go through to work with Leah?
When I first got her, we had to go through nine weeks of training in Virginia. The dog itself doesn’t need that long. A lot of the training is for me. I had to learn to read her. She isn’t trained to find drugs; she’s trained to find the odor. We go to training sessions in Virginia approximately two times per year.
Age: Ron, 36; Leah, 4
(28 in dog years)
Columbia Resident since: Ron moved to Columbia when he was 14. Leah has lived with Ron for the past three years.
At the Job Since: Ron, Jan. 5, 1998; Leah, 3 years this December
Do you use treats as a reward in training?
When we do searches in houses or cars, people use food, especially fast food wrappers, to distract dogs from the scent of the drug. She needs to ignore food when she does her job. The Kong (a dog toy filled with flavored paste) is what she gets when she’s doing obedience. A rolled-up towel is the reward when she does her job.
What kind of training do you do with Leah?
There are two types of drills. When I hide the drugs, that’s training for her. When someone else hides the drugs, that’s training for me. I’m looking for alerts when I watch her. She follows or works a scent to the source, and then her trained response is to sit.
How did Leah learn to sniff out and identify drugs?
You take a towel and sterilize it. Then you leave it with marijuana (or another drug) for a while. The towel soaks up the smell of the drug. You start training them by playing with the towel. First, you throw it in their line of sight, then farther and farther away until you throw it out of their line of sight. When you’re doing “finds,” the dog thinks it’s finding its toy.
Have you ever not found drugs?
We’re not perfect, but 99.9 percent of the time; it’s my problem. My first search, cops found two or three grams of crack cocaine because I failed to get Leah where she needed to go to smell the odor.
What’s the biggest bust you ever made?
It’s not always the big busts that are the best. Her very first find was a pinky-nail-sized piece of marijuana in a vehicle. You prove your dog’s worth when they hit on smaller amounts. One time at a house officers had searched, she found a little less than a kilo of crack cocaine and 2,000 ecstasy pills.
What happens if she eats the drugs?
I have a drug kit that I carry in case that happens. Usually I do a sweep of the area before I bring her in to make sure she’s safe.
What is one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced with Leah?
She’s very friendly, and some guys at the station were playing with her when I’d leave my office, and I didn’t know. When we got out into the field, she didn’t want to do her job. Instead she’d want to go hang out with the other officers because she knew they’d play with her.
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