‘Dog-gone’ drugs: ‘Nick’ knows how to nose around for trouble

By Erin McGrath

Published: August 20, 2008

Brand new freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors stepped off the large, yellow vehicle dressed in new, brightly colored clothes and carrying large, bulky backpacks.

But one new NCHS attendee was dressed a little differently.

Instead of new sneakers and a crisp T-shirt, he wore a short black leash and a shiny silver collar.

Nickodemus, or Nick, is the newly certified law enforcement narcotic detection dog for the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office, and Monday was his first day of school.

Along with his handler, School Resource Officer Bill McDonald, Nick sat quietly in the entryway to the high school, watching the

students walk inside.

“This is all new to him,” McDonald said after quietly giving Nick the command to stay, in German. “He’s still getting used to this.”

Why Have Nick There At All?

For more than eight years, McDonald has been the school resource officer at Nelson County Middle and High School. Nick is McDonald’s third narcotics detection dog.

“Nick is my partner,” McDonald said. “He’s only employed when there’s a drug issue.”

As the students walk past Nick, he sniffs everything that comes within a foot radius of his seated position. Nick comes to school with McDonald daily, he said.

“He’s free to sniff air so we walk up and down the halls and sniff the lockers,” McDonald said. “We’ll walk through the parking lot to sniff the cars.”

McDonald said he sees a definite drop in drug-related activities at the school when a narcotics detection dog is present.

“We don’t want our kids distracted by drug use or drug sales or all the other crime that goes along with drugs or illegal narcotics,” McDonald said. “With a drug detection dog, and a school resource officer it’s a big deterrent.”

Who is Nick?

Nick is a three-year old Belgian Malinois. He stands over three feet tall and weighs more than 80 pounds.

The Nelson County Sheriff’s Office purchased Nick in April, using private donations and money from drug seizures. He is one of two narcotics detection dogs in the county.

“Nick is more than we expected,” McDonald said. “We got lucky.”

Last June, when the search for a new narcotics detection dog began, the sheriff’s office contacted Armin Winkler, a professional working canine trainer.

Winkler, of Palmyra, found Nick.

“Nick was raised and trained by a German person, but he was actually born in America,” Winkler said. “He was born by a breeder in Indiana and raised by a person in Massachusetts. He’s got good breeding, good genetics.”

Nick was originally trained for dog sports, Winkler said. That made training him for narcotics detection easier.

“It was easier to have a dog with a lot of foundation training already because the sheriff’s office didn’t have a lot of money to spend on school time,” Winkler said. “The dog already had a really good foundation. All we really had to teach him was to do it out of context and of course the narcotics work.”

Nick Goes to School

Twice a month, Nick and McDonald attend training at the Central Shenandoah Criminal Justice Training Academy.

Their transportation isn’t a large yellow bus, but a police cruiser with a converted back seat for Nick, whose classmates come from Augusta County, Louisa County, Waynesboro, Charlottesville, Buckingham County and Dayton County.

Nick and McDonald are members of the Blue Ridge Police Canine Training Association, which are members of the National Association of Professional Canine Animals.

Nick can detect many different types of narcotics, McDonald said. His next task is learning how to tracking for search and rescue.

“He has a very strong sense of smell which makes locating easier,” Winkler said. “I would say his sense of smell, as far as police dogs go, is in the above average category. He is a better than average dog.”

In the next four years, the incoming freshman Nick greeted on Monday will graduate and finish their time at NCHS.

But to keep his skills sharp, Nick will have to be a constant student.

Dogs learn and maintain their training through repetition, Victor Mitchell, a master trainer with the NAPCA, said.

“The more you repeat it, the better they learn it, the more they retain it,” Mitchell said.