Chairs line the perimeter of New Hanover Regional Juvenile Detention Center’s common room around 8:30 a.m. June 18. Teens wearing matching grey sweatpants and glazed, early-morning expressions emerge from their rooms and slump into the vacant seats.
The door to the common room opens and a 2-year-old Dutch shepherd prances in, a red chew toy clutched between her teeth. A girl sitting near the door sits up, her face breaking into a smile as she clucks to the dog.
“This is K9 Jorga,” a voice announces from the door. Randy Searls, Jorga’s owner and fellow member of the nonprofit I&I International search and rescue team, follows his dog over to greet the teens.
Jorga and Searls have been visiting since February, when the center’s human services coordinator, Sherry Cain, learned about Jorga and realized the teens could benefit from meeting the unique shepherd. The lessons carry subtle warnings about Jorga’s strength, intelligence and crime-solving abilities — she can smell teeth buried six feet underground and locate a single drop of blood on a hidden gauze pad — but the greater purpose of the visits is to inspire, not intimidate.
Searls cues the first slide in a PowerPoint presentation. While the kids seem to be listening, their eyes follow Jorga as she wanders around the room, carrying her toy. The girl can’t stay in her seat any longer; she scoots to the ground and Jorga, sensing a playmate, drops the chew toy at the girl’s feet.
Meanwhile, Searls explains how the partnership began. He bought the Dutch shepherd from a family when she was a puppy. He chose her for her sweetness and playfulness, traits reinforced by spending the first few months of her life around young children.
The kids had named her Georgia, which Searls adjusted to a more Dutch spelling and pronunciation. He taught her commands in German to avoid confusion in tense situations. She understands 27 specific directions, from “sit” to “revere,” which commands her to search for a missing person. Searls said she knows, from the way he gives the “revere” command, whether to bite or lick the person upon finding him or her.
She also developed other skills, like using exercise equipment. Searls said his wife and Jorga work out side by side, his wife on the elliptical and Jorga on the treadmill. Jorga doesn’t let them slack on their fitness, Searls added, laughing.
“When we get home, she actually pulls my shorts, my workout shoes, my shirt out of the closet and pulls them right onto the floor,” he said.
Searls and Jorga also received professional training at Bullocks K9 Academy in Greenville, N.C. They underwent the six-month emersion course together, developing a powerful partnership in the process.
“I have to be careful what I ask her to do,” he said, “because she’ll do it. It doesn’t matter what it is, she’s going to make it happen.”
She’ll follow him into burning buildings and out of helicopters, he said. If they come under fire, she’ll lie in front of him. She has special booties, earmuffs and goggles to protect her on such occasions, and a recent national fundraiser outfitted her and other police canines with bulletproof vests.
She also has two special collars. If Searls puts her tracking collar on, she knows she’s going on a search-and-rescue mission. A few weeks ago, she helped law enforcement track down an elderly Sampson County man who wandered off.
If Searls straps on her other collar, she knows she’s searching for the scent of human remains. Recently, she used that ability to reopen a cold case from 15 years ago.
“We were going into a building in Benson to see if it had possibly been a crime scene,” Searls said. “She confirmed the smell of blood in there, and found needles and alcohol pads.”
Because of those two distinct skill sets, she’s called a dual-purposed canine. But there’s a third role she inhabits equally well: dog. She’s extremely social, especially with children. While the teens in the detention center benefit from Jorga’s weekly visits, Searls said the experience is equally valuable to the playful shepherd.
She’s also intuitive, he added. While some of the teens, like the girl, call to her, a few others still slump in their seats, apparently disinterested. Jorga wanders over to the cluster of boys, drops her chew toy at their feet and takes a few expectant steps back, staring at them. Finally, one boy reaches down and tosses the toy. Jorga immediately returns it to him. For the first time that morning, he seems to engage in Searls’ lesson, and soon he raises his hand and asks a question.
Meanwhile, the girl has crawled to the center of the floor, alternating grabbing Jorga’s chew toy and excitedly peppering Searls with question after question about the dog. Someday, she wants to adopt pit bulls that have been abused, she said, to prove breeds labeled by society as aggressive can be sweet when shown love and care in return.
“I hate that certain breeds are labeled,” she said. “Everybody deserves a second chance.”
Since one or two visits with Jorga stir such ambitions, Searls is giving the kids the opportunity to keep working with her after they get out of the detention center. Meanwhile, Jorga and Searls are moving into the Wilmington Police Department and preparing for their next mission: searching a 50-acre area for bodies.
Searls said he adopted the shepherd puppy two years ago because he thought she was special — he just didn’t realize how special.
“This dog, that will pull a man out of a building and kiss a child, we’re so blessed to have her,” he said. “She’s succeeded way beyond my wildest dreams of what I thought she would do.”
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