POLICE PATROL DOGS LEARN NEW SKILLS 4-LEGGED COPS COULD FIND BODIES AFTER TERROR ATTACK.

Byline: Amy Raisin Darvish Staff Writer

NEWHALL - Like human detectives who solve crimes of homicide or bank robbery, police dogs have been trained as specialists.

Criminal-tracking four-legged investigators, for example, have rarely been trained also to find the remains of innocent human victims - until FBI Special Agent Sonja Nordstrom began a program debuting this week in Towsley Canyon.

Called the Human Remains Detection Course, the weeklong program has drawn dogs and their handlers from as far away as New Mexico. The purpose is to train veteran patrol dogs in human-remains detection.

``This is about taking advantage of a great resource that already exists, a quality product that already works,'' said Nordstrom, a 13-year FBI veteran based in Los Angeles. ``These dogs have already shown that they have the drive. This training will benefit (police) departments at minimum cost, with maximum results.''

As terrorist attacks continue to plague countries around the globe, investigators and emergency crews, as well as those waiting to learn the fate of missing loved ones, need more dogs trained to find bodies and body parts amid rubble. As budget deficits stretch law enforcement agencies thin, adding cadaver finding to the skills of veteran police dogs is cost-effective, Nordstrom points out.

Nordstrom started working with dogs nine years ago, during her off-duty hours. Her German shepherd, Nikko, who died nearly 18 months ago, found the body of one of the three victims murdered by a motel handyman in Yosemite in 1999.

Dogs from police departments in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Las Vegas and other cities are spending the week in the hills of Towsley Canyon, learning to alert their handlers to the presence of actual human remains. The remains used during training include small amounts of blood, hair, fingernails and teeth - all properly sealed.

Most of the four-legged students are patrol dogs that usually sniff out suspects hiding in a building or in an area whose perimeter is being watched by police.

Officer Linda Travis of the Los Angeles Police Department, a dog handler and assistant trainer who has been working with Nordstrom, brought her Dutch shepherd, Dar, to a warehouse fire in North Hollywood a few months ago. She and Dar were later credited with having pointed fire investigators to two burned bodies buried under charred debris.

Travis' boss, Sgt. Doug Roller, chief dog trainer for the LAPD, said he understands the distinct differences between handling a patrol dog and handling a cadaver dog.

``(The reward for) human-remains work isn't as instantaneous as (in) patrol work,'' Roller said. ``With patrol, the canine finds the bad guy; there's an arrest. It's instant reward, or there's gratification in getting a serial killer off the streets.

``But with human remains, handlers sometimes don't know for weeks if it was their dog that led to a body,'' he said. ``The training (for human remains) requires more time, but you can't put a price tag on it.''

Similar to dogs that sniff out narcotics, dogs trained to find human remains alert their handlers to potential evidence. Nordstrom said the dog's signal can include a turn of the head, a lift of the nose or an obvious preoccupation with an area.

Officer Finn McClafferty and Sgt. Wes Takahashi of the Beverly Hills Police Department brought Nitro, a 5-year-old German shepherd, to expand their department's capabilities without straining the budget.

``Nitro is what we call a single-purpose dog,'' McClafferty said. ``He's a patrol dog. This course is basically laying the foundation for his training in human-remains detection. There will be more training after this course ends, but the goal is to make him a dual-purpose dog.''

Amy Raisin Darvish, [phone]

amy.raisin(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) LAPD Officer Linda Travis works with her police dog, Dar, in an FBI course in Towsley Canyon to learn to find traces of human remains, as they might need to do after a terrorism attack. Patrol dogs could double as cadaver dogs.

(2 -- color) FBI Special Agent Sonja Nordstrom watches LAPD Officer Linda Travis and Travis' dog, Dar, in training to find traces of human remains.

(3 -- color) A Las Vegas police officer, Tom Moore, and FBI Special Agent Sonja Nordstrom watch Moore's police dog, Sico, an eager student in a training course in Newhall.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer