ALLENTOWN, Pa. — There are dogs whose days consist primarily of eating, drinking, being walked, playing fetch and napping beside their owners while watching TV on the living room couch.
And then, much to the chagrin of the bad guys, there are Dexter and Cisco.
No, Dexter and Cisco is not the title of a suspense-filled, cops-and-robbers show.
Rather, the remarkable skills of the weapon-detecting K-9s were on display on Monday at the Cedar Crest campus of Lehigh Valley Health Network, part of Jefferson Health.
LVHN has added the two security K-9s whose scent capabilities are so precise they often can detect gunpowder from a firearm as soon as they walk into a room.
“These dogs are very precise. They’re very good at what they do.”LVHN Director of Security Services John Christman
“These dogs are very precise,” said LVHN Director of Security Services John Christman, a former veteran South Whitehall Township police chief. “They’re very good at what they do.”
No particular incident involving a weapon at LVHN prompted the launch of the K-9 program, LVHN Administrator of Emergency Operations and Public Safety Ryan Hay said.
“We’ve been evaluating the K-9 program for a little over a year here at Lehigh Valley,” Hay said.
“In working with other industry colleagues across the country, we try to identify different initiatives and enhancements that we can do to better improve our security.
“We stumbled upon a couple different detection organizations using K-9s for firearm detection, one of which is Hartford Health in Connecticut.
"They’re a similar-sized organization, so we reached out to them and they were able to share how they developed their program.”
A demonstration of dog skills
Hartford Health connected LVHN with Reda, who performed a demonstration and showed how the dogs can be used to increase hospital safety.
LVHN acquired the K-9s from Stapleton Security, which provides detection and security services across the country and has its K-9 training facility in East Stroudsburg.
Frank Reda, a 31-year veteran of law enforcement, selected Dexter, a male black Labrador, and Cisco, a female Springer Spaniel, both 1 ½ years old, and trained them for nine months.
At a media demonstration Monday, Reda put the dogs through individual demonstrations to illustrate their ability to sniff out a weapon, oftentimes in a matter of seconds.
Reda placed a revolver in the pocket of a jacket on the back of a chair. Each dog entered the room and sniffed around for a few seconds before arriving at the jacket, sniffing, then sitting.
Each dog then was given a toy ball as a reward, as they have been trained to associate a reward with an object or an odor.
“That's the paycheck — that dog's paycheck,” Reda said.
A similar demonstration was performed outside the testing room, as a weapon hidden inside a trash receptacle was detected by each dog.
Industry data lists the success rate of weapon-detection K-9s at 90%.
The K-9s were accompanied by full-time handlers Ed Mayer and Kasey O’Connell. The officers and dogs both passed a National Detection Certification conducted by two independent certifying officials from outside Pennsylvania.
The K-9s will work staggered shifts, 40 hours per week, Hay said, and sometimes more depending on the type of events being held at LVHN’s properties.
“They’ll try to hit a couple campuses every day,” Hay said.
“They’re not just focused on the Lehigh Valley. We’re very excited to have them going to Hazleton, the Poconos, Schuylkill County and Dickson City.
“They’re making the rounds across the eight-county area. That’s very exciting.”
