Talia Hodge
Summit County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Michelle Wiltrout goes to work with a diaper bag stuffed with food, bowls, toys and treats for her baby — her fur baby, to be exact. With big brown eyes, 4-month-old German-Australian shepherd puppy Dottie, wearing a sheriff’s T-shirt, makes one cute junior deputy. Dottie is undeniably adorable, but she is also training for an important role — narcotics K-9.
“It’s like being a new mom again,” says Wiltrout, a Norton resident, who is married with a 10-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel and two young kids. “She is very spoiled.”
That sweet “little stinker,” as Wiltrout calls her, is setting a precedent. Dottie is the first rescue puppy the sheriff’s office is training in-house. Previously, it outsourced training, which costs a whopping $25,000 per K-9 — as it did for its three patrol, one bomb and one narcotics K-9 officers.
Upon meeting the 2 1/2-month-old pup at North Canton’s Pawsitive Hope in mid-December, Wiltrout knew Dottie had the right social, fearless demeanor for the perilous job.
“You need them, in the K-9 world, to be a little brave,” Wiltrout says. “She was pouncing, running between everybody saying, Hi.”
Co-workers call the beloved pooch “captain,” joking that she outranks Wiltrout. All day long, Dottie gets visits from co-workers wanting to pet her, say hello and feed her dog treats stashed around the office. Dottie knows the Czech K-9 commands for sit and lay, getting rewarded with toys like a braided rope.
“The rate at which she is mastering simple things for a puppy in comparison to what I’ve seen in the past is astronomical,” says Wiltrout.
After a year of obedience and socialization training, the dog will undergo about six weeks of narcotics odor training to get state-certified. Dottie could do narcotics traffic stops or undercover work. Her success could lead to more K-9s trained in-house, which also provides a morale booster. Even the toughest officers melt around the pup, including one who dropped to all fours in full uniform to greet Dottie in the courthouse.
“Our K-9s bring out a more human part of law enforcement. The guys are all macho and then you put a puppy in the room and within minutes — it’s amazing to watch the change,” says Summit County sheriff Kandy Fatheree. As she looks at Dottie, she does the same. “You’re so darn cute!”
