Labrador Orphan Serves In K-9 Unit

Mojo isn't the type of police dog that bites the running bad guy.
And he probably won't make any headlines for sniffing out a kilo of cocaine either.
But that won't matter to a lost hunter shivering in the wilderness when he's rescued thanks to Mojo's nose.
Mojo is one half of a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission K-9 unit that patrols the Tampa Bay area. On the other end of the leash is Officer Joe Wolff, who's been using dogs to track lost hunters and corner poachers for four years now.
Wolff and other FWC officers carry the same rights as other law enforcement agencies, but their jurisdiction and job duties are much different. Wolff and Mojo reflect that.
Most police dogs are either German Shepherd or Belgian Malinois imported from European kennels. The FWC relies on sporting dogs. Mojo, for instance, is a black Labrador orphan adopted from Hernando County Animal Services.
A lot of police dogs are so highly strung that handlers will caution against making eye contact or sudden movements around their dog. Mojo greets everyone with a cold nose to the hand and slobbery lick.
The job duties vary, too. Your average police dog can be trained to perform a variety of tasks, from "bite work" to drug detection.
Mojo detects contraband too, but of a different sort. One of the primary duties of the FWC is to regulate the various hunting seasons and regulate poaching. Wolff's dog and the 17 other FWC K-9s in the state are trained to alert when they detect wild turkey, lobster, venison or fish in a poacher's boat or vehicle.
Mojo's nose is also good at ruining alibis. Say a poacher realizes officers are approaching so he changes out of his camouflage and abandons his weapon and carcass.
"I was just hiking through the woods," he claims.
Mojo can use the scent of the "hiker" and track it back to the rifle and the kill. Case closed.
That same skill comes in handy when a suspect hides evidence in the woods or throws a weapon from the window of a car. When other agencies request help from FWC to locate evidence, it's dogs like Mojo that take the job.
Most police dogs, with the exception of blood hounds, are limited in how far they can track a suspect or missing person. Mojo excels at tracking, Wolff said.
The Track
To prove his point, Wolff invited a reporter on Monday to a secluded patch of the Withlacoochee State Forest to demonstrate his K-9's abilities. Officer Israel Istre played the role of the scofflaw and tromped into the woods to fire two shots from a rifle.
After giving Mojo a chance to say "hi" to everyone and mark his territory, Wolff harnessed him to a 15-foot lead and said the magic words: "Go find him."
At 240 pounds, Wolff is a big guy, but Mojo easily pulled him down the dirt road in his eagerness to catch the quarry. After about 300 feet on a straight path, Mojo came to an abrupt stop and lifted his head. The bad guy had taken a right into the woods.
Mojo bounded into the woods, Wolff running to keep up. In less than three minutes, Mojo had recovered both the rifle and uncovered Istre.
Wolff's cries of praise rang out in the shady forest:
"Woohoohoo, good boy! Good boy! What did you find? What did you get?"
The dogs are a real tool during hunting season when a camouflaged hunter could easily elude an FWC officer, said Wolff, as his K-9 wallowed in the leaves and happily chewed on a water bottle.
"These dogs take out the human element," Wolff said. "We might think we know what happened, but the (dog's) nose doesn't lie."
These dogs "are just phenomenal," Istre added.