Ghost, a Department of Corrections K-9, watches visitors come in to Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Wash. (Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)
In a prison north of Olympia, a deaf, all-white pit bull mix named Ghost searches visitors for drugs.
“It’s incredible to watch him work,” marvels a Washington State Department of Corrections staff member. Ghost, a rescue who’s “totally unadoptable” due to his intensity — his handler, Erik Prange, calls him “insane” — moves from each visitor and their belongings with practiced discipline.
Ghost is one of just a handful of working K-9s in Washington who can sniff out fentanyl. Like many of these dogs in the state, he was trained by the Department of Corrections. The agency only keeps eight dogs for its prisons but trains around 12 a year, many of whom go to local courts, jails and law enforcement agencies.
Usually, only K-9s assigned to prisons are trained to detect fentanyl, but that’s about to change due to bipartisan state legislation passed this year that will allow Washington to create a model program for training and certifying dogs to detect fentanyl.