Benton, Yakima Counties Welcome New ‘Electronic’ K-9 Sniffers

Benton County and the Yakima Police Department are welcoming two new K-9s to their forces, but they're not the typical police dog.

   These new dogs are called ESD's

The first known official use of a K-9 trained to locate electronic storage devices such as hard drives, thumb drives, computers, and other digital equipment was in 2012. Law enforcement in Connecticut trained a K-9 named Selma to sniff out hidden digital storage devices.

Now, more Law Enforcement agencies are utilizing these animals. Benton County has just sworn in Blaze, who is trained to sniff out all sorts of ESDs. According to the BCSO:

"...she will be used to help locate hidden electronic storage devices during Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigations, as well as many other cases, where electronic devices are being searched for."

  Yakima's Police dog is named Router, that's rather timely! He's a Black Lab who not only can sniff out ESDs, but is also trained as a comfort animal for victims and witnesses during interviews and court testimony.

Depending on the source, there are between 51 and 100 ESD K-9 dogs in service in the US, Benton County and Yakima Police are the only ones in Eastern WA so far.

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ESD dogs have played crucial roles in some big cases, including the conviction of former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle in 2015. An ESD K-9 located storage items where authorities discovered the child porn that eventually landed him in prison.

Both dogs are now officially on the job, and will also be utilized with other departments if they find a need to locate ESDs.