He is the newest member of the Sheriff’s K9 workforce and one of only three dogs in the state trained for this purpose.
by Hank Silverberg
CORRESPONDENT
The northern Virginia region has a new weapon in the never-ending battle against sex exploitation.
He is a two-year-old, newly trained yellow Labrador retriever named “Nugget” who is now working for the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office.
His handler, Lt. Brian Seay, an 11-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, says Nugget has a unique ability to smell the odor of triphenylphosphine (TPPO), a chemical used as an insulator in many electronic devices such as USB drives, computer hard drives, SIM cards, tablets and laptops that might be hidden by sexual predators and not discovered during a routine police search.
The canine was trained for three months by the Indiana firm Jordan Detective Canine, which developed the program with the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nugget is working on a five-year contract between Spotsylvania County and Operation Underground Railroad, which is associated with ITAC—the Internet Crime Against Children Task Force.
Lt. Seay says Nugget can be deployed anywhere in northern Virginia during searches for pornography or in human trafficking cases where the criminals may hide evidence of a crime in places difficult to detect. He has already been deployed once during his first two weeks on the job.
“He can find a small SIM card hidden in a book on a shelf full of books that we might never find,” says Seay.
All it takes is a command. Lt Seay says Nugget reacts the same way a civilian dog would when told to go fetch his ball.
Nugget is one of only 136 dogs nationwide trained to do this special kind of work. There are two others trained for the same task in Virginia, one in the Virginia Beach area and the other in Roanoke.
Seay takes care of Nugget at his home in Culpeper. He says Nugget is treated a bit differently than the other dogs he has worked with.
“He’s part of the family,” Seay says, adding that it’s important that Nugget bonds with people.
When Nugget is not searching for illicit photos or other content like a GPS or AirTag, he can also be used as a “comfort” dog for survivors of sexual violence or when children are being interviewed.
Nugget originally started out with Paws with a Cause, a Michigan-based company that trains guide dogs for people with disabilities or other special needs.
But Seay says Nugget did not have the temperament for that job and was unable to work in a harness, so he was retained as a search dog.
Spotsylvania County now has one of the biggest K9 units in the region, with a total of eight dogs. Six are used as patrol or narcotics dogs, which can attack fleeing suspects or sniff out drugs. There’s also a bloodhound used in searches for suspects or people who are missing.
Nugget makes eight.
Watch a video of how dogs like Nugget are used here.
