Jacksonville High School starts first day with new K9 friend
Aug. 12—JACKSONVILLE — The hallways of Jacksonville High School were much like those of any other school Thursday morning, as streams of kids flowed through them on their way to classrooms at the start of a new year.
Only this year, those halls got a furry addition in the form of a floppy-eared K9 officer named "Flint."
Officer Flint and his human counterpart, Officer Jeremy Penny, began their first day at JHS with the dog eager to get to work. Early in the morning, the 4-year-old German shorthaired pointer tugged his handler along the rows of lockers as students settled into their seats.
"Officer Flint is a proactive measure for us," Principal Dr. Russ Waits said. "Constantly sweeping areas of the school — because he's with us all the time — gives us a daily approach to preventing bad things from happening."
The chocolate brown pup might look super cute and cuddly, but when he's on the school grounds he's a highly trained officer of the law. Flint can sniff out all types of weapons and explosives.
"He can detect anything from a spent shell casing to your higher end explosives," Penny said.
Asked what Flint would do if he sensed a weapon or an explosive substance, Penny said the dog would sit in front of the spot where he detected it — a signal to his handler to check that spot.
Penny's trainer, Jesica Fleming, said Flint has been trained on all types of weapons in every condition — old, new, dirty or recently cleaned. Fleming noted that while Flint has completed his training, Penny still has a few weeks to complete his certification for Flint to be operational.
Just having Flint on the school grounds is an excellent deterrent for the students who might try to bring in an unacceptable item or substance, according to Fleming, who's an independent contractor for training dog handlers for law enforcement in the Jacksonville area. Seeing the dog there and knowing what he can do can greatly influence students' actions, she said.
Because Flint is a trained service dog, students won't get to pet him as they might want to. Instead, Flint goes home with Penny at the end of the day, and that's when Flint gets his down time — snuggles included.
"When he's out walking the hallways, he's working just like I am. Any kind of petting or anything is a distraction to him, and of course obviously we don't want him to miss anything," Penny said. "When he has that vest on, just like us, he's working."
However, the safety officer does have an office inside the school that functions as a relaxation zone for man and beast.
"A lot of teachers have kind of said that he's their emotional therapy for the day," Penny said.
Though petting outside of his office isn't allowed, Penny said having Flint there can be instrumental to bridging the gap between a school resource officer and the kids.
"He's a very good communication starter," Penny said. "A lot of times, police officers dressed in a full uniform are not very approachable."
There's nothing like a furry pup to break down barriers, according to Penny.
Penny has 17 years of experience with the Jacksonville Police Department, with eight of those years on the Calhoun County Drug and Violent Crime Task Force. He said he's always wanted to be the high school's resource officer, as Jacksonville City Schools are where his kids attend.
Flint has been with JPD for three years.
"We are blessed that Jacksonville City Schools and the Jacksonville Police Department have recognized the value of being proactive, so we're very fortunate and blessed to have Flint with us," Waits said.
The animal's training is focused on weapons detection as opposed to drug or vaping substances the way some other K9s are, which Waits said was more important to him at the end of the day.
"We know basically every day on some level we're searching for weapons. Obviously that's the main thing we don't want to come in," Waits said.
