MIDDLETON - An agitated inmate or criminal suspect may occasionally lash out in defiance at the guards or police officers tasked with maintaining order - but seldom does anyone dare mess with Jake, Blitz and Dozer.
"They do so at their own peril," said Paul Fleming, the spokesman at the Essex County Sheriff's Department. "If anyone does, it's ball game over. These dogs will stop any issue."
It's not hard to see why.
The stout, 75-pound animals move with speed and precision, bark with a chilling ferocity and have jaws that clamp down a set of massive incisors with the force of a bear trap.
Each of the 18 K-9 units at the sheriff's department will stop you in your tracks, but Jake, Blitz and Dozer - each 3- and 4-year-old German shepherds - are department stars. All three earned the prestigious National Patrol Certification for Police Dogs this month during a rigorous and comprehensive certification process in Merrimack, N.H.
Blitz finished first out of a couple of dozen dogs and police departments from all over southern New England - including big departments from Boston, Manchester, N.H., and Bridgeport and Hartford, Conn. Dozer finished fifth.
The officers had to work for months with the dogs - largely on their own time - to get the them ready.
The two-day competition involves tests of obedience, agility, search and scent challenges, suspect searches and apprehension.
A dog might be asked to find a set of keys in a big, grassy field, then chase down a fleeing suspect, only to be told to stop 10 feet from making the apprehension. That discipline to stop the chase when ordered, even when the suspect is firing blank bullets into the ground and the dog's adrenalin in running hot, is the hardest part of any dog's training, according to Sgt. Don Evans, who handles Blitz.
"The personality of our dogs and the dogs we get are what separates us and puts our dogs at a national level," Evans said.
Dogs are at work, in and out of the jail
The dogs at the sheriff's department are invaluable to operations.
Their main function is to maintain security inside and outside of the corrections facilities in the county - one of the few corrections departments on the East Coast to use dogs inside the prisons.
"The prisoners don't go from one building to the next without the dog knowing and approving," said Sgt. Steve Tsoukalas, who handles Dozer. If someone tries to escape, or tries to go somewhere on the campus they are not supposed to be, the dogs react swiftly. A show of those impressive teeth is usually enough to give prisoners pause.
The dogs also travel all over the county, searching for drugs, controlling crowds, apprehending dangerous suspects and searching for and recovering guns and other key evidence tossed by criminals.
And they are used way more than you might think. Just last week, Jake, handled by Sgt. Jennifer Walsh, grappled with a suspect in Lynn.
"It's constant," says Shane Ethlers, captain of the K-9 Unit at the Essex County Sheriff's Department. "We're in Lynn several times a day. We're in Lawrence a lot. And we service all the local cities and towns. ... They really work well with narcotics work and missing persons. What we can't see, they pick up."
The most common call is for narcotics searches of vehicles, houses and more. And sometimes, they search for people.
"A gentleman with Alzheimer's wandered off in Boxford," Fleming recalled. "It was cold and he was completely lost and disoriented. Our dogs tracked him and found him and prevented what could have been a serious medical problem."
That illustrates the dogs' versatility. One day they're tracking a lost elderly man, or scanning a school full of children for drugs; the next day, they may be tackling an armed and dangerous felon fleeing on foot.
"That's the beauty of these dogs, you can turn them off and on in a second," Ethlers said. "They are well-mannered and very capable of working in different environments."
'You have to have a strong bond'
The dogs, however, are not machines. There is a crucial acclimation process that must take place between dog and handler, because the trust between them must be absolute.
A lot of bonding happens during a 16-week police dog training course in Boston that both dogs and officers attend shortly after the department purchases a dog from a breeder in Brookline. Each "green" dog costs between $5,000 and $6,500.
At the training, "they learn how the dog works, and how the handler works," Ethlers said. "It's a total team effort. Due to the position and all the things involved with this job, you have to have a strong bond."
He is very quick to point out, however, that although the dogs go home with their handlers each night, the dogs are not pets. They're mostly kennelled at home, and there are boundaries that must be kept between the officer, his family, and his work partner. If the dog becomes too comfortable, it affects its work in the field, Ethlers said.
But humans are not robots either.
"The worst part of this job is when your dog gets sick and you have to put them down," says Evans, who had to do just that last August, when his last partner Teddy became ill. "You spend 40 hours a week or more with them. You are constantly training them left and right, over and over. They become like a family member.
"At the same time, the dogs are used to protect people. If someone needs protecting like a child or anyone else, they do it - that's the duty of these dogs. That's what they're meant for; there is no hesitation."
But, as Ethlers looks as his champion Blitz, he concedes that it's not always easy putting them in the line of duty.
"You definitely worry is when you send them someplace like a dark warehouse and you know there's someone in there, possibly a dangerous felon with a gun," he said. "You never know what's going to happen."
Staff writer Jesse Roman can be reached at jroman@salemnews.com.
