Scituate's police dog serves the region

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent

Felix is not your ordinary dog. Barking away inside the Scituate police cruiser, a big red “Caution” posted on the side door, it's easy to see why.

A 5-year-old German Shepard from the Czech Republic, Felix is the Scituate police canine, a dog cross-trained in both patrol and narcotics detection. His day-to-day job reads like a script from a TV drama, and his presence points out his difference from a house pet.

“He's a good boy,” said Brain McLaughlin [below], the Scituate K-9 officer and Felix's handler. He smiled as he looked over at the police cruiser, rocking slightly with Felix bouncing around inside.

Although Felix can bark on command, he isn't just for show. From June 2008 to June 2009, Felix was deployed 105 times, doing everything from locating missing people to helping with drug detection in motor vehicle stops in Scituate and neighboring communities.

For both McLaughlin and Felix, the job changes daily.

“We could be out there and boom, he's going to work. Or we could change hats and he could be ... assisting an area with a drug warrant. You never know what you're going to deal with when you go out there,” he said.

The training to get to this point was extensive, McLaughlin said. After being selected by the Barnstable County Sheriff's Office as an adequate police dog, Felix went through a five-month patrol school, was on the road for a year, and then went to a 14-week narcotics-detecting school, McLaughlin said.

In addition, both McLaughlin and Felix attend two monthly eight-hour training sessions, one during the day, and one at night.

“We keep up the skills that way, for him and myself, but the initial training was very extensive, very involved,” McLaughlin said.

Even now, there is training daily. Felix has to perform drug detections and extensive obedience tasks for every meal, which is given to him at a different time every day.

Although Felix is constantly on his toes, being a police dog does have its perks.

“We have to let him do whatever he wants. If he wants to step up his front two paws on the kitchen counter, let him do it. Because someday we could be doing a drug search in the kitchen and we don't want to have any type of bad memories of kitchen countertops,” McLaughlin said, laughing.

Felix works mainly in Scituate, however he is also used throughout neighboring communities. Through mutual aid, Felix is able to help with bigger projects that might take a town's one canine too long to accomplish.

“Neighboring towns like Cohasset, Marshfield, and Norwell – we provide mutual aid if the town does call and request. We also help neighboring communities that have canines such for missing persons or fleeing suspects, something that requires multiple canines to do a larger area of search,” McLaughlin said.

But Felix doesn't come cheap. Not only was the initial cost of the dog expensive, McLaughlin said, but his upkeep and equipment add up as well.

“The dog costs money to have it … but we haven't had any cutbacks because half the cost we've had donated anyway,” he said.

From the beginning, McLaughlin and the department have did extensive fund-raising for the dog, leaving their program virtually untouched in the economic crisis.

“With the food being donated, the shelter being donated, that's how we've tried to help out with these tough financial times,” he said.

But even the remaining costs are worth it, McLaughlin said.

“If you look at what he does in the grand scheme of things, I mean, the cost is worth saving somebody's life. Having your house broken into and being able to recover your personal items...you can't put a price on that. And I think that's how [the town] looks at it,” he said.

What truly makes Felix remarkable is the speed with which he is able to do his job. In scenarios where time can be the difference between someone living and dying, having a police dog is an incredible asset for the town.

“We assisted successfully this winter with [a woman with Alzheimer's], I think she was late 70s. She was missing for four and a half hours and left the house just wearing her slippers and nightgown in the middle of January. And the dogs tracked her a mile and a quarter into a swamp. And she was about half an hour away from death,” McLaughlin said.

“[That's] someone's family member, you always have to look at it like that.”

It's the positive outcomes that make the job worthwhile, McLaughlin said, just knowing that you've impacted a family in a large way just because of a simple dog.

“I think just being able to go out there and try to help someone when they are in a time of crisis, [it makes it worth it],” he said.