Press

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) – The Williamson County Sheriff’s Department has the state’s first electronics sniffing dog.

Remi is a two-year-old black lab with a unique talent that allows her to smell electronic components.

She is adept at detecting cell phones, SD cards and thumb drives.

“Her work drive [and] her hunt drive – it is extremely high,” said Detective Lee Eaves. “That is why we selected her as the dog we would train.”

Det. Eaves told News 2 electronics have their own scent.

“There’s an organic chemical coating put on the chips of devices that hold media that prevents the chips from overheating and that is what she detects,” Eaves explained.

To show off her powerful crime-fighting skills, Det. Eaves hid an SD card in one of five suitcases. Remi found the tiny card in less than 10 seconds.

“This is a 32 gig thumb drive that could hold thousands of images, photographs or movies,” explained Eaves.

Sheriff Jeff Long told News 2 Remi will be invaluable in all types of electronic searches from luggage to automobiles.

She’ll also help find contraband in the jail, but her main purpose is to combat child predators who use the internet to peddle child porn.

“Child predators store these illicit images on thumb drives, hard drives, SD cards and hide them from us and we won’t find them a lot of times. They might be behind a door or in a drawer, we wouldn’t normally locate, and Remi lets us find that illicit contraband and images,” Eaves explained.

Remi was trained and donated by Nashville K-9 at no expense. Friday was her first day on the job.

Sheriff Long said it is also exciting to be the first in the state to have a K-9 like Remi.

“Absolutely, I have challenged our staff to be the best sheriff’s office in the state of Tennessee and this is them coming through,” he said.