Drug dog fails biggest test

Remember all the controversy surrounding the drug-sniffing dog named Indy that cruised through Chico high schools searching for contraband? What happened to her?

Well, she flunked her final.

The canine’s sense of smell was put to the test last school year when a Chico High School student who transferred to another school left behind more than friends. An alcohol container was found during a routine locker cleanup, and administrators saw it as a golden opportunity to test Indy’s skills.

Indy missed the container the first time around but caught it on the second run. “Indy should have been able to identify the odor, but she couldn’t,” said Chico High Principal Jim Hanlon. He and the other administrators were not impressed—neither was Interquest, the detection canine agency in charge of Indy.

Interquest’s owners couldn’t be reached for comment. Hanlon said they had told him they were unhappy that the school tested Indy without making them aware of the open container.

“Interquest thought that what we did was unethical, so we parted ways” at the beginning of 2006, Hanlon said, without fanfare.

It was the end of a 20-month-long, $18,000 effort to keep drugs off campus that some parents and students opposed as a violation of personal privacy but ended up ending simply because it didn’t work.

The Chico Unified School District enlisted the dog-sniffing services of Interquest, which was contracted to work with Chico, Pleasant Valley and Fair View high schools. From residual marijuana odors to open alcohol containers, Indy the drug-sniffing dog was supposed to find it all. By law the animal was not allowed to sniff people, however, only backpacks and lockers.

Hanlon said there were a number of visits where residual odors weren’t detected as promised by Interquest. No hits, visit after visit. “I know for a fact that we are not a clean campus,” he said, adding: “We were not pleased with Indy.”

Interquest and the school had agreed upon unannounced visits, but the school could not always accommodate the canine agency because an administrator had to accompany the Interquest employee at all times. “We had differences about timing,” Hanlon said.

Administrators began to feel frustrated with the dog’s inability to perform at the level promised by Interquest.

Feedback from students proved what administrators had already started to believe. At first, the students were deterred by the dog-sniffing program, but later, when there weren’t any hits, it lost its credibility.

“It didn’t make a difference,” said Elva Sandoval, a 17-year-old senior at Chico High. Since the dog “didn’t sniff the actual person,” students could stash drugs under their hats—"problem solved.”

Ha Lee, a 16-year-old junior at Chico High, said Indy made kids scared to bring drugs to school, but he wasn’t sure how long the fear lasted.

“Everybody started figuring out how to get around the dog,” Sandoval said. “There weren’t too many people scared.”

The same thing was true at other schools.

Pleasant Valley High Principal Michael Rupp said at first there were fewer suspensions for drugs, “but the initial changes in students’ behavior didn’t last too long.”

Steve Connolly, Fair View’s principal, said students are sharp enough to figure out methods to redirect attention from themselves. “When they wear jackets, hats and baggy pants, dogs won’t smell a thing.”

All three principals agreed on one thing: Drugs and alcohol are a problem in society and schools.

If effective, Hanlon said, drug-sniffing dogs are a good measure. “I want a credible preventative program, but if it’s not effective, I don’t want it,” Hanlon said. “All we wanted was for the students to think twice about bringing substances to school.”