ALLENDALE, Mich. — There's a new sher-ruff in town!
Grand Valley State University introduced a new police dog to their team on Thursday.
Scout, a 2-year-old Labrador Retriever, has joined the Grand Valley Police Department as their K9.
Paul Weaver, a community police officer and K9 handler at GVSU, said he and Scout will mainly be based in Allendale.
Scout is trained in explosives detection and will be a critical part of GVSU's safety procedures for major events.
Before football games, for example, Scout will do a pre-game sweep of the stadium. Throughout the game, you may even catch a glimpse of Scout in action as he visits different areas as a part of GVPD's emergency action plan.
Weaver said Scout's training process for detecting explosives consists of him finding and smelling a certain odor—in this case, the smell of an explosive. When Scout finds the odor and alerts the police, he gets a reward.
"The dog's ability to smell is so much greater than what can be replicated," Weaver said. "So they can cover a large area. They can hone in on specific areas, such as, 'Oh, there's a suspicious bag. Okay, we can go out and check that bag.' We can look in different areas for a device that may be planted days in advance."
He said as they train, they look at past events to identify trends in crime and then replicate them, so Scout can start to learn areas to focus on when sniffing out explosives.
Scout has been welcomed to the team as an additional layer of safety for the students. Weaver said he's one of a lot more resources being dedicated to keeping large events safe.
"Again, it's a layer in addition to other individuals doing protective sweeps," Weaver said.
As any dog would, Scout still needs some play time to go along with his workload, and Weaver makes sure he gets it.
Weaver said Scout has joined them on family trips and went to the Mackinac Bridge last weekend.
"He is a great boy," Weaver said.
You can check out Scout's introductory video here: