Meet Blaze: Police dog hired to protect 4,200 Middle Tennessee students after gun went undetected

“Can I pet him?”

It's a question Wilson County Deputy Dusty Burton gets a lot these days from the more than 4,000 students in the Lebanon Special School District. The kids got a dog this semester, a three-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer with a black head and mostly white and black body named Blaze, who is essentially now a school district employee.

Walter J. Baird Middle School eighth-grader Luke Grime has Blaze’s job description down pat: to enhance school safety and be loved on.

“If something (dangerous) is reported and there is a threat… he can go sniff it out,” Luke said. “And (Blaze is) kind of relieving. He can be a therapy dog.”

Blaze began working for the district during the second week of school. He's from the Global K9 Paws on Patrol program that trains dogs for law enforcement in Auburn, Alabama.

Gun at school led to Blaze

He may be cute, but Blaze's origin story is anything but.

School shootings, including the April incident at Nashville's Covenant School, continue to dominate national headlines, but parents in Lebanon had another reason to worry earlier this year. A gun was brought by a student to Winfree Bryant Middle School in February and went undetected until the latter part of the day, Wilson County Sheriff's Capt. Scott Moore said.

In the aftermath of that incident, two mothers, Christie Finch and Maria Stranahan, expressed concern about school safety policies and offered suggestions for school board to consider, including Paws on Patrol.

"Blaze is the solution that can guarantee this situation won't happen again," Stranahan said. "It is a remarkable tool that not only keeps our schools safe from hidden guns, but also has a positive impact in schools by providing parents, staff and students with peace of mind."

And as Lebanon school officials looked into Paws on Patrol, "we got more interested,” the district’s Director of Operations Mike Kurtz said.

“It’s a lot safer,” Walter J. Baird sixth-grader Scarlett O’Neal said about how she feels with Blaze around.

Burton trained with Blaze for four weeks in Alabama after the deputy was selected by the sheriff’s department to be the district’s K-9 school resource officer.

“Officer Burton and Blaze provide a preventative element, detection capabilities and serve as a therapeutic presence to all of our campuses,” Lebanon Special School District Director Brian Hutto said. “The added layer of their involvement in our school community and relationship building capabilities is invaluable.”

Early returns

Blaze is a kinetic attention dog with enhanced firearm detection capabilities, including the ability to sniff out firearms, ammunition and explosives, which gives the animal a purpose to his walk and his nostrils when he's near lockers or backpacks.

The Lebanon district's agreement with the sheriff’s office also allows Blaze to be used by Wilson County Schools in certain circumstances. When fireworks went off Lebanon High School early in the school year, Burton and Blaze were called in to investigate, and the dog found a firework in a student’s backpack, Burton said.

“If something is not supposed to be there, he’ll find it,” Burton said. “Even if there is something out of the ordinary, he’ll find it.”

The Lebanon Special School District budgeted $170,000 for Blaze and Burton this school year. Burton generally takes the dog to several schools each day. The district has five elementary and two middle schools.

Blaze goes home with Burton after each workday.

“And he’s a huge morale boost for the kids. About the second or third day that I had him out at schools … these kids would get out of the car or get out of the bus … and you tell when a kid doesn’t want to be there … they’d see him, their face would light up, they’d come right over and ask to pet him, and it would change their whole demeanor for the whole day right there.”

Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com or 615-726-5939 and on X, formerly known as Twitter @ AndyHumbles.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Police dog hired to protect 4,200 Middle Tennessee students