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By now you may have heard how Boomer, a Labrador retriever and a member of the Virginia Tech police department, helped solve the mystery of the suspicious noises on campus yesterday. Click here to read today's story. Below is a profile of Boomer published last Wednesday.

By Shawna Morrison/The Roanoke Times

BLACKSBURG -- For Boomer, days when the Hokies play at home are some of the best days of all.

Those are the days when Boomer gets to work for hours, sniffing the concession stands, luxury suites, trash cans and bathrooms at Lane Stadium.

Boomer's job -- and the job of several other police dogs brought into Virginia Tech's football stadium on game days -- is to sniff for explosives.

"This is play time for him," said Virginia Tech police Officer Larry Wooddell, Boomer's handler, as he watched Boomer sniff a Hawaiian Shave Ice stand, a Reddy Ice machine, a Three Little Pigs stand and a Suntrust ATM on Oct. 4, hours before the Hokies were scheduled to play Western Kentucky University.

He'll do the same Thursday before the Hokies take on Maryland in a 7:30 p.m. game.

The stadium is too big to be searched by one dog, so a handful of bomb-sniffing dogs converge on game days and their handlers split up the stadium.

"We just start at one end and come all the way through and check all the little doors and everything," Wooddell said.

When Wooddell says he has the 66-pound, 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever check everything, he means it. Water fountains, fire extinguishers, wall-mounted TVs, bathroom sinks. If Boomer starts to walk by an item, Wooddell taps on it to get his attention.

"Find it," he tells him. After Boomer checks an area, he gets a hearty "Atta boy."

Police have used dogs to sniff for explosives inside Lane Stadium before football games for years -- since so long ago that Wooddell can't recall when the practice started -- but Boomer is the first bomb-sniffing dog owned by Virginia Tech police.

"There aren't many explosive-detection dogs in the area," Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said. With the number of events on Tech's campus and the number of dignitaries who come to visit, "it just made sense for us to have that asset here on campus."

Departments in Roanoke County, Roanoke city and Bedford County and the Virginia State Police also have dogs that are trained to detect explosives.

Some of the state police canine handlers are also bomb technicians, making them more efficient, state police Sgt. Michael Conroy said. That way, if a dog alerts his handler that he has smelled an explosive, the handler doesn't need to call in an extra person to examine it.

State police have had such dogs for several years, said Canine Section Coordinator Sgt. G.J. Totten. The dogs can be used to conduct parcel searches at facilities that handle mail or packages; vehicle searches for security details; aircraft, public transportation vehicle, school, vessel and building searches, Totten said. They also can be used to search for weapons that have been discarded after a crime.

"Boomer's a great asset to Virginia Tech for response time," Wooddell said. If the university gets a bomb threat or a suspicious package is reported, "I live five minutes down the road. I can be back here quick."

Other than Tech games and events on campus, Wooddell and Boomer have had three calls for service since June, when Boomer joined the department. Two of the calls were to sniff out suspicious packages; the third was to search for a weapon.

Boomer is trained to detect 16 different odors, including dynamite, C4 and black powder. As the number of types of explosives grows, Boomer's training increases.

He went through 13 weeks of training before he began working. Wooddell will continue to train with him at least four hours a week. In addition, they train three days a month with a certified Virginia State Police master trainer in Bristol.

Boomer, who was born in Germany, was purchased for $6,000 from the same Ohio canine vendor another Tech police dog, Hokie, came from in 2001.

"He's what we were looking for because of that drive he's got," Wooddell said of Boomer.

Eleven-year-old Hokie retired in early fall, after Tech police got a German shepherd named Boris to take his place as a multitasking police dog.

Flinchum said it was difficult to find a dog like Boris, who is an excellent police dog but is also good with people.

"We took our time to find a dog that is sociable," he said, something he felt was important for a dog working on a college campus.

Boomer, with his smiling face and friendly demeanor, fits right in. Like most Labradors, Boomer just wants to be petted and praised.

"He's great with people," Wooddell said. "And he's not aggressive-looking like a lot of police dogs."

Boomer didn't seem to be distracted at all as he walked by a grill covered in giant, smoking turkey legs before the Western Kentucky game. Asked if Boomer ever does get distracted by food as he sniffs trash cans and food stands, Wooddell said, "Only once."

That time, Wooddell said, Boomer picked up a chicken bone -- possibly the worst thing he could have picked up, Wooddell said, because it could have snapped and become lodged in his throat. Wooddell yelled at him to drop it. Since then, Boomer hasn't picked up any other foods while he was working.

Before the Oct. 4 game, Boomer seemed focused for nearly an hour of nonstop searching in the concourses, luxury suites and hallways inside Lane Stadium. But then, in one suite, he suddenly grabbed a remote control.

"He's getting frustrated," Wooddell said. "He wants to find something."

Boomer needs to be rewarded from time to time to keep the search fun, Wooddell said. He made a note of where he stopped searching, took Boomer outside and asked another handler to plant a training aid -- a small canvas packet filled with an explosive material.

The other handler stuck the packet on the corner of a table surrounded by stacks of soft drinks. After a few seconds of sniffing the drinks, Boomer found the packet. He immediately sat down, indicating to Wooddell that he found what he was looking for.

His reward was a rolled-up towel and plenty of praise.

"Now we can get back to work," Wooddell said. "It's fun again for him."

(Photo by Justin Cook/The Roanoke Times)