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." Read more »