The North Dakota Peace Officers Association Convention hosted a K-9 Challenge Wednesday morning at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Resource Office.

Up to a dozen dogs participated in the competition to show the strengths of the animals and their handlers.

“Today, we are going to start with some narcotics ‘hides.’ We’ll do narcotics hides in vehicles inside of a building. We’ll do some real-life scenarios to challenge both the handlers and the dogs as far as narcotics,” said Jamie Huschka, trooper for the Williston office of the North Dakota Highway Patrol. “After that, we will be doing evidentiary services where we hide an article. Then, the canine team has to find that article.”

Most of the dogs are trained to search for live individuals. Huschka said searches for people are equally important in law enforcement.

“Narcotics is a big part of what we do, but we also do the evidentiary searches and the dogs also track,” he said. “Any type of law enforcement agency is going to have a scent-type dog - either suspects or missing people. A lot of times, we search for missing children, Alzheimer’s patients who have wandered off and things like that,” said Brian Knight, a trooper/dog handler from Minot.

He said about half the work leans toward finding missing people versus finding a suspect. He said many dogs are trained for finding live individuals.

He added there are specialized dogs known as cadaver dogs that search for bodies.

Knight and Huschka prefer working with Labradors.

“They have a higher drive and they seem to do scent work a little better,” Knight said.

Training typically starts when dogs reach 2-3 years old, Huschka said.

“We don’t want to get a puppy.We want to get them when they’re matured and we know they‘re still hyper. Sometimes, they get the puppy hyperness and they grow out of it,” Knight said “We want that puppy hyperness all the time because they are enthusiastic and they want to work.”

He said it’s a lot of work for a dog to search a smaller area because it’s breathing everything really fast and sniffing everything. But that high drive is needed to smell an entire room. “If you just sat and breathed through your nose, and sniffed everything in here, you would be exhausted,” Knight said. “You’d be breathing heavy...That’s why we want these hyper dogs so that they will continue to work. It’s a lot of work for them, but they really enjoy it.”

Huschka said a big challenge for the dogs is a locker search at a high school.

“It would be like a marathon. That’s just how much work they are,” he said.

Other breeds also can detect special scents and protect or aid a handler.

“The German shepherds are used for doing the aggressive work and for the scent work. So, if you have a dog that will apprehend somebody, we usually have the German shepherd do that or a Belgian Malaois,” Huschka.

Huschka and Knight said the dogs know when they are on duty and look forward to it.

“Every dog is a little different. A dog can differentiate the fact that once they get into the car, they go into work mode,” Knight said. “When they are at home, they are at-home mode. Some handlers will keep their animals separate from their household. Other handlers will introduce the animal into their household, and it actually becomes a part of the family. It depends upon what works.”

Huschka has found that once he puts on his uniform, the two dogs he has worked with know it is time to get serious.

“They follow me around the house until I could take them out to the car and go to work. They get in the back seat of the car and get treated very well,” he said.

Many canine dogs serving with law officers can perform their work for up to 12 years. The North Dakota Highway Patrol has nine such sniffing dogs around the state.

Dogs handled by the Highway Patrol in this region are often shared with other law agencies.

“If the trooper or any law enforcement requires the need of a canine, then all they have to do is call. The other agencies use my canine every bit, if not more as much as I do,” said Huschka.