Neither bomb nor gun nor drug is safe from Lowndes K-9 sniffers

The doors to the banquet room at Lion Hills Center open and Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office K-9 “Diablo” enters the room.

A hush falls over the crowd, and the dog pulls against the leash, held by handler Thomas Honnoll, indicating he has picked up a scent.

Honnoll gives the command and Diablo begins sniffing bags, signaling when he’s found his target, a Dewalt tool bag sitting under a window.

Honnoll rewards Diablo with a tennis ball and picks up the bag, revealing a half-kilo of marijuana, signed out from the evidence locker and used for the training demonstration.

The audience erupts into applause.

“They are very good at what they do,” Sheriff Eddie Hawkins told Columbus Exchange Club members on Thursday. “The handlers are trained. They have to go through a lot of specialized training. But finding the right dog with the right temperament is a tough job. We have some dogs that make it and some that don’t. It’s hard to find the right handler to fit the personality of the dog. Because dog’s do have personalities.”

Following Diablo, K-9 “Boss” is brought in by his handler Jeff Edmondson. Boss is a bomb-sniffing dog, trained to find explosives and discarded weaponry.

Boss, too, leads his handler to a backpack sitting against the wall. He is rewarded for his find, and Edmondson explains the backpack contains a canister of black powder, one of the key components of an explosive.

Hawkins said it may seem like there wouldn’t be a need for a bomb dog in Lowndes County, but there is.

“Recently, we had bomb threats at several schools here in Lowndes County,” he said. “We used that dog, but because there were so many schools, all at one time, we had to call in the Air Force to bring in their bomb dogs to help search. We did a search of all three schools that day, and that’s a lot for a dog to be searching at one time.”

The dog can also be used to sniff out a gun that was discarded following a crime.

A new K-9
LCSO has a third K-9 officer, but Hawkins said it is nearing retirement.

This means acquiring a new dog is on the horizon, but there are some issues that must be addressed first, namely, the legislation regarding medical marijuana.

“(Legislators) are making medical marijuana legal here in Mississippi,” Hawkins said. “That can kind of create a problem with the dog. Dogs are trained to smell drugs, including marijuana. … I think what we’re going to do now is buy a dog that’s not been trained on anything but other drugs aside from marijuana. If we go up to a car and do a search and we actually find drugs like cocaine or heroin or such, the dog’s not trained on marijuana so we know there’s drugs in the car.”

He said purchasing a new dog costs anywhere between $10,000 to $12,000. Following that, there are training and bonding classes for both the K-9 and the handler.

“It’s a long, drawn-out process just to get a dog,” he said.

LCSO is looking to get a dual purpose K-9 for its next dog. This means the K-9 is trained in multiple disciplines.

“It is one that can do detection or tracking or it can actually be a bite dog, to protect the handler or if we have to send him in after an armed suspect or something like that,” Hawkins said.

There is no timeline on when the current K-9 will be retired, Hawkins said it is just time to start thinking about a replacement for when the time comes.