Metro Transit Police introduced their new explosives-sniffing dog "Stevie" to the public last week.
Stevie is the King County Sheriff's Office second explosive-sniffing dog, and the first assigned to Metro Transit fulltime.
He and his handler, Deputy Tim Morgan, will patrol Metro Transit facilities in Highline and elsewhere daily, always on the lookout.
Stevie joins another sheriff's office explosives dog, Jones, and handler Deputy John Decker.
The duties of Morgan and Stevie include random sweeps of Metro facilities and coaches. They also respond to bomb threats and even crime scenes where Stevie can help find evidence such as firearms and ammunition.
Both dogs are Labrador retrievers, and each received 10 weeks of training at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Training Center in Fort Royal, Va.
In addition to sniffing out all kinds of explosives, the dogs can detect or locate firearms, ammunition and shell casings. They can also find gunpowder and explosive residue on people.
Stevie is a 11/2-year-old black Lab and graduated in December, along with Morgan. Their full-time assignment to Metro Transit Police is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Jones is a 2-year-old chocolate Lab. He was born into a litter from the Guiding Eyes Foundation in New York. ATF found him as a puppy and thought he would make a good bomb dog.
Jones entered the Puppy Behind Bars program and was raised by an inmate. He and Decker graduated from the Fort Royal program in July 2006.
Since both dogs are trained and supplied by the ATF, they are on-call and can be deployed all over the West Coast when needed. Jones already has been to Monterey, Calif., and Las Vegas on special assignment.
When either Stevie or Jones is deployed or otherwise not available, the other dog will fill in where and when needed.
Both dogs live with their handlers and their families. The dogs are trained on the food reward system. That means to eat they must train every day, searching out training aids about 30 times a day for a few bites of food each time.
Morgan has been with the sheriff's office for over 21 years, and in SWAT and the Bomb Unit for 13 years. Stevie is his first bomb dog.
