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April 11, 2023
Bloodhound Puppies Surpass Expectations 
 by Laura L. Sullivan, Public Relations Specialist
To tell if our bloodhounds are in work or play mode, check their leash. When Holmes and Duke have their leash clipped to their regular collar they’re all puppy – wrestling with each other, getting belly rubs, and stepping on their own oversized ears. But as soon as that leash switches to their official work harness these hounds are all business.

The pups, now five months old, have advanced from following a simple straight track to zeroing in on a scent article – in this case a glove another deputy has been keeping in their vest to absorb their unique smell – and following it on a long track with a lot of distractions. “That’s really the bread and butter of these hounds, latching on to a specific smell and then following it to its conclusion,” said Pasco County Sheriff’s Office lead bloodhound trainer Corporal Rob Wilkins. Apprehension dogs like German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois only follow the freshest scent in an area, but bloodhounds can pick out a specific odor and keep it in their minds for hours.

Deputy Anthony Ashworth brings little Duke to the glove laying on the grass and gives him the command to smell it. Down goes the nose, and with just a quick sniff Duke is ready. “Seek-track,” Deputy Ashworth commands, and they’re off to the races. Duke bounds through the grass, down a well-traveled pedestrian path with the smells of many other feet, and into the woods where he finally finds a man hiding… with a cup of kibble of course. 

“It’s crazy to see the transition from week one to where we are now,” Deputy Ashworth said. “To see them coming out here on day one, putting their nose to the ground and finding the guy, to now we have two people walking out and splitting off, and they’re using scent discrimination to follow the correct trail.” 

Being able to stick to one scent without being distracted by another one is vital to a bloodhound’s success. During training two people walk out side by side, one drops a scent article, and later they split in different directions. The bloodhounds ignore the distraction track and stick to the target. “It doesn’t sound like a lot but in our world that’s like the Superbowl because we need that dog to pay attention to the correct odor,” Corporal Wilkins said. When they hit the streets they might have to follow a lost child’s track through a busy park, an active neighborhood, or a mall, and the scent could be hours old. “It’s asking a lot of the little guys but they’re all just killing it.”

The pups are always having new elements introduced to their training. “Recently we started high hides – someone hiding in a tree,” Corporal Wilkins said. “They have to learn what that odor ‘looks’ like. When a subject is in a tree the odor comes down in a bell shape, it doesn’t fall straight to the ground.” The dogs need to learn what that scent pattern means and figure out that they need to look up. Whenever they add a new challenge they temporarily relax other factors. “I don’t want them to have a negative experience. I want them getting out of the car thinking I can win everything.”

Duke and Holmes are part of a litter of 11 siblings, all of which have gone to law enforcement agencies around the country. Three of the pups are with Pasco and all five are being trained at the Pasco K-9 facility. This group of hounds is proving to be so exceptional that they’re incorporating training elements most bloodhounds don’t get. For the shepherds and Malis, training is done with a toy reward. When they do something correctly, they get their tug toy and playful interaction with their handler – that’s all the reward they need. Bloodhounds, on the other hand, are usually trained only with food rewards. However, as an experiment, the trainers decided to add a tug toy as a secondary reward. “Typically they don’t want anything to do with toys,” Corporal Wilkins said. “But we introduced it, and they are about 80 percent committed to it. They like it, they carry it, they’re not really going to tug with you because they’re not a tugging type of dog. But it has a value to them, and I think that value will increase.” 

Anything they can do to reward the dogs for correct behavior will only reinforce it. A big part of training – and something that can be hard for some handlers to learn – is the praise voice. Deputies often learn to pitch their voice low and speak seriously, which can help them maintain an aura of authority in many situations. They soon learn this doesn’t work with dogs, which respond best to high-pitched, excited praise. 

Trainers have also started something else that is very unusual with these remarkable bloodhound brothers: obedience. Most working bloodhounds learn just one thing – how to track. Bloodhounds are notoriously stubborn and resistant to any training that doesn’t involve their nose. “Nobody does obedience with bloodhounds,” Corporal Wilkins said. “We’re trying. I’m not going to make any promises, but the dogs are taking to it really well.”

Right now they’re using marker training, with the goal of convincing the dogs to get on a board. When they accidentally touch the board they’re rewarded with an excited “Yes!” and given a food treat. (They get something a little tastier than their usual kibble during obedience training since it’s not as fun or natural to them as sniffing.) Eventually they figure out that the board is a food button and get on it willingly. “We call the board kindergarten. Once they’re there, they can start learning.” Next they’ll learn sit, down, and stay. There’s no punishment for mistakes, just withholding the treat and a gentle “uh-uh.” The puppies are eager to please though and are starting to figure out what their handlers want. “They’re so much better at it than I would have anticipated. If I’d known this maybe we’d have done this years ago. It’s pretty impressive. We’ll take it until we hit a wall.”

Duke and Holmes are doing equally well but have different personalities when they track. “Holmes is a more methodical tracker,” Corporal Wilkins said. “Duke is a little more reckless. He’s smash and crash. Both are effective, just different.” He doesn’t want them to be too fast at this point though. “As their drive increases and they get bigger and stronger and the game becomes more valuable to them they’re going to go faster. My first dog was almost a sprint, because I let him go too fast when he was young… and I paid the price for it later.” When they are adult dogs with long legs and amazing endurance, their handlers will have to keep up with them for miles and miles.

Handlers are learning as much as their dogs, taking an active role because training will be ongoing through their career and they won’t always have an instructor to guide them. “When they do maintenance training down the road they need to know how to problem solve,” Corporal Wilkins said. “The goal is for these guys to have all the information.

Both handlers are enjoying the training and eagerly anticipate the day their bloodhounds make their first official catch. “K-9 is something I’ve always wanted,” Deputy Ashworth said. He has been in law enforcement for seven years, with prior experience in West Virginia. “I hadn’t thought about bloodhounds before, but I’d heard great things. Someone I knew from where I used to work had a bloodhound.” He sees great value in bringing bloodhounds to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office to search for missing persons or to track suspects. “I think it’s going to be a game-changer.”

Duke seems to be looking forward to the job. At Deputy Ashworth’s home he has a happy puppy life. “My wife loves him, and I’ve got a German shepherd who is just ecstatic, she loves to play with him.” But as soon as little Duke sees that his handler is in his uniform and ready to go he runs to the truck. “When I open up the back door he’s jumping up and down and then he climbs up in there, ready to go.”

Chain of Command: Major 
 by Laura L. Sullivan, Public Relations Specialist
Whether you’re a major or a deputy, it’s all about communication. “This holds true from a patrol deputy responding to a call for service and communicating with a citizen, to relaying information both up and down the chain of command,” says Major Jennifer Love. As the major of the Support Services Bureau she has a lot of divisions to communicate with, including Communications, Records, Fleet, Purchasing, Forensic Science, Property and Evidence, AFIS (fingerprinting), and the Training Division. The higher you rise at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), the greater chance that you’ll be supervising an area you haven’t worked in before. Though she has plenty of leadership experience she hasn’t worked in any of those areas herself so communication with the division commanders below her is vital. She says she trusts them as experts in their areas of responsibility and relied on them to get over the steep learning curve that came with the job.

PCSO has five majors. In addition to Support Services there’s one in Judicial Operations, Investigative Operations, and Patrol. Major Joe Gerretz is at the helm of the Department of Detention and Corrections (DDC), Support and Health Services Bureau. 

Major Gerretz worked at the jail for five years before moving to the patrol side. “During my teenage years I spent six years as an Explorer [now Cadets] with the PCSO and always knew my aspiration was to be a law enforcement deputy.” He worked in three different divisions and a variety of positions including Field Training, the Major Accident Investigation Team, Administrative Investigations, burglary detective, and much more. He has experience all around the agency, but when he was promoted to major in DDC he hadn’t worked in the jail for a long time. 

“In my current leadership role, there are many challenges, especially since I have been away from the jail for almost 25 years, but there are also many rewarding situations.” Among his myriad duties, Major Gerretz oversees the Medical Division. “One of the biggest challenges I face today is my lack of knowledge and experience in the medical field, especially when I must make essential decisions related to inmate health care. This now requires me to ask more pertinent questions and conduct research, prior to rendering some direction.”

Learning never stops at the PCSO, and both Major Love and Major Gerretz emphasize the need for members to keep learning and growing, especially if they hope to advance in rank. “I was told early on to step out of my comfort zone,” said Major Love. “If you stay in one place for too long, you will get comfortable and when you are comfortable you stop the learning process. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and learn from your mistakes. 

“Get involved and don’t remain stagnant,” Major Gerretz echoed. He has participated in hundreds of new hire oral boards, and when asked why they want to work for PCSO, applicants often say because there are so many different units and areas they can work in. “Members have so many opportunities,” he said. “They should not lose the drive to grow throughout their career and move out of their comfort zone.”

Some deputies might find their work so rewarding that they never think about rising through the ranks. In fact, early in his career Major Gerretz never wanted to be promoted higher than a patrol sergeant. “I always thought this was the best rank and assignment, because you still were able to have fun being a deputy, but also had the ability to influence and mold others.” But as he rose he found himself looking for more challenges and responsibility. “This is what ultimately led me to continue testing and promoting up the ranks. Looking back, I can honestly say I made the most out of every position and rank I obtained. I feel I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to be promoted to the rank of major and credit my success to all the great supervisors I worked for in the last 30 years at the PCSO.”

A major’s insignia is a gold cluster of oak leaves worn on the shoulder. Why oak leaves? No one really knows, though sources speculate it might have to do with an oak’s legendary strength. It looks a little like a palm tree too, which is fitting for a Florida major. Both represent characteristics a major needs: the enduring strength of a oak, and a palm’s flexibility to bend enough to weather any storm.
PCSO and Habitat for Humanity Unite for 800th House
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) has a long history of partnering with Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas and West Pasco. Recently, the PCSO was on hand as Habitat dedicated their 800th home in the area.

The first houses had frame construction and no air conditioning. This 800th house is strong block construction with hurricane rated windows, solar panels on the roof to dramatically reduce the electric bill, and of course air conditioning. Like many Habitat houses it includes a porch, because according to Habitat historian and former board member Norm Bungard they learned early on that “porches bring people together” and encourage neighbors to talk to each other, get to know each other, and work together for the good of their community. “Habitat is about building communities,” he said, and that’s exactly what they’re hoping to do in this Lealman neighborhood which has multiple Habitat houses in a cluster. 

It will be the perfect home for Brianna Clayton and her 5-year-old daughter Paisley. Brianna is a student, a bartender at Buffalo Wild Wings, and single mom who wanted to provide stability for her daughter. 

Mike Sutton President and CEO for Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas and West Pasco, talked about their history and their mission. “Since 1985, Habitat has been partnering with local families to break the cycle of poverty, empowering them to build and purchase their very own safe and affordable home. The Habitat vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live. We believe that affordable homeownership has the power to transform lives, making a stronger community.”

Sutton thanked the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. “They have been an amazing partner to Habitat, they come to every home dedication and present a basket to the family. We appreciate your service to our community and thank you for keeping us all safe.” Members of the PCSO also helped with this build and have participated in many others. They see it as a way to give back to the community and show that the PCSO cares.

Members of the community brought gifts, from a $1000 scholarship from St. Petersburg College to help with Brianna’s education, to Bucs tickets from Martin Gramatica. 

Sutton hopes that many more families will be helped in the coming years, and said they’ll build their thousandth home before he knows it. “What’s unique is that every one of those families comes to us with a different story, and a different way of getting to us. But with Habitat we’ve helped them achieve their dream of owning their own home in an affordable way.”