A ‘Woofstock’ event is held in Fremont’s Central Park.
By Rob Dennis
Fremont Argus
Posted: 10/08/2010 11:00:00 PM PDT
Updated: 10/11/2010 09:59:35 AM PDT
FREMONT — Rocket was a day from being euthanized when Dave Dorn found him nearly six years ago in a Bay Area shelter.
Today, the 9-year-old yellow Labrador is enjoying his retirement after a career as the top narcotics detection dog in the western U.S.
The hyperactivity that makes dogs like Rocket so difficult to handle as household pets often makes them perfect for law enforcement work as drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs, Dorn said.
“Most of the time, these dogs don’t make good pets for homes,” Dorn said. “They just always keep going, keep going, keep going. … He was a rocket, man. That’s how he gets the name. He (nearly) escaped from me three times.”
Rocket demonstrated that get-up-and-go along with his drug-sniffing prowess Saturday during Furry Friends Rescue’s Tail Waggin’ Walk and Picnic, dubbed “Woofstock.”
The event, held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Fremont’s Central Park, raised money for Furry Friends and the Tri-City and Hayward animal shelters. Furry Friends, an all-volunteer nonprofit companion animal rescue organization based in Fremont, has saved more than 12,000 animals since 1998.
The day kicked off with a 3K walk and included music, a vegetarian lunch, raffles and a silent auction. Dog show contests included Best Talent, Coolest Hippie, Prettiest Flower Child, Best Speak, Unique Mix and (of course) Howl-loween Costume.
Rocket and another of Dorn’s dogs, an 8-year-old black Lab named Storm who specializes in bomb detection, strutted their stuff at noon, walking down a line of plastic tubs and orange cones and then pouncing on the one with the suspicious odor.
Rocket, in character, pawed frantically at the tub, flipping it over and popping the top off. Storm proceeded in a more sedate fashion.
“She’s a little slower because she does explosives, and we don’t want her knocking over the bomb,” Dorn said.
Dorn, a sergeant with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, has been around dogs his entire life. He has been a police officer since 1994 and has been supervising and training the department’s Canine Unit for 12 years.
Through their company K-9 STAC, or Specialized Training and Consulting, he and his wife Kerry have found, trained and placed about 30 dogs into law enforcement agencies throughout California. If a dog has the right stuff, it takes about five weeks to train it to detect odors and conduct searches, and another four weeks to get it working with its police handler.
“I’ll take a three-legged dog, I’ll take a beagle, I’ll take 10 Chihuahuas,” Dorn said. “If you have the right drives to make it, you’re in with me.”
For more information about training dogs for law enforcement work, go to www.k9stac.com. For more information about Furry Friends Rescue, go to http://furryfriendsrescue.org.
This articles are originally posted on www.insidebayarea.com.