Ogden, Utah — (KUTV) There are dogs that can sniff out narcotics and detect explosives, but the Weber County Sheriff’s Office now has a K9 that can track down illegal pornography.
It’s a 17-month-old black lab, named URL, pronounced “Earl”, with a specially trained nose to sniff out electronic storage devices such as thumb drives, cellphones, SD cards, external hard drives and tablets.
Experts say there’s a common chemical in electronic storage media, a trainer in Indiana trained URL to become an expert in detecting that scent. In fact, URL’s trainer was the very same one who trained the dog who helped bring down former Subway pitchman, Jared Fogle, imprisoned on child pornography charges.
If the authorities suspect someone is withholding illegal or explicit material, like child pornography, a search warrant may be issued and URL may be called upon by other agencies to perform a search.
“You’re talking micro SD cards, very small devices that can be basically hidden anywhere. They would be very difficult to detect without probably tearing the whole place apart,” said Lt. Lane Findlay, with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office.
Turns out, Earl was a rescue dog, left at the pound twice, before someone saw potential.
“A few families kinda gave up on him,” says Det. Cameron Hartman, URL’s partner, who takes him home every night after a long day’s work. “It’s been awesome so far and we’re really just excited to help whichever agency is out there that needs something so unique as this.”
Hartman says he knows of less than ten law enforcement dogs in the country with the ability to sniff-out electronic devices.