Oak Harbor police have a new ally in the war on drugs. She is friendly, wiggly, likes to be scratched behind the ears and has an amazingly powerful nose.

Yoda, a small black Lab, recently started work as the department’s first drug detection dog.

The impetus for getting a drug dog comes from Chief Steve Almon. He said he worked in narcotics for five years in Wichita and found drug-sniffing dogs to be invaluable. He felt it would be a great benefit to have a narcotics dog as part of the Oak Harbor Police Department.

“We do have drugs in our community,” Almon said, ”and we have drugs passing through our community. We should have the advantage of every tool that is available to us.”

“There is a definite connection between drugs and the crime rate in a community,” the chief added. “If you want to impact the crime rate, you need to impact drugs.”

Almon said his original plan was to replace the department’s patrol dog, a hyper German shepherd named Bak, with a drug detection dog after Bak retires. As opposed to drug canines, patrol dogs are trained to track and detain people.

But Officer Mike Bailey, the department’s dog handler, wanted to take on both dogs at once. The two dogs ride together in the back of the same patrol car which has been fitted with a metal divider separating Yoda from “the Tazmanian devil,” as Bailey fondly refers to Bak.

Bailey said Yoda comes from a master trainer in Stanwood, who trained her to detect marijuana, hashish, methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. He went through a two-week training course with the dog so they could both become state certified for drug detection.

Almon said Yoda is a great drug dog and officers from other departments were jealous that the Oak Harbor Police got her. He added that Bailey, Yoda and Bak will all be available to assist other law enforcement on the island.

During a recent training exercise, officers hid a old baggy of pot under the locked gas flap on a van. Bailey circled the van with Yoda on a leash, encouraging her to find the drugs. At the gas cap, she started barking and jumping on the vehicle, scratching at the metal that hid the marijuana.

After her work was done, Bailey rewarded her with her favorite toy — a rolled up sock.

Bailey explained that Yoda has been taught to “aggressively alert” when she smells illegal drugs, which means to paw and jump at the source. Under state law, drug-sniffing dogs can only be used to sniff at inanimate objects, which means they can’t search people with their X-ray noses. They can help officers search a house if a search warrant is obtained and they can even help officers get a search warrant by “alerting” on something.

The problem with a dog trained to sniff out drugs, Bailey said, is that they don’t make very good house pets. As part of her job, Yoda is supposed to climb up on furniture and countertops, which can make her pretty destructive if she’s left indoors.

Fortunately, Yoda seems very content to live outside in her kennel most of the time. Bailey said both the dogs live at his home with his family members, who love the pooches. The two canines pretty much ignore each other most of the time.

The dogs live for the job, Bailey said, and there’s nothing happier than a police pooch with work to do.

You can reach News-Times reporter Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611.