Meet Zeva, Marysville's newest police dog

Johnathan Hogan, Port Huron Times Herald
·2 min read
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When working with Zeva, the line between work and play gets blurred. She's learned she only gets the ball after she's completed the task at hand.
When working with Zeva, the line between work and play gets blurred. She's learned she only gets the ball after she's completed the task at hand.

At the beginning of work each evening, Marysville Police Officer Travis Baldwin spends his first few minutes playing catch with his co-worker.

It's not that he's procrastinating or slacking off, he's making sure Zeva, Marysville's new police dog, is both entertained and keeping up with obedience training.

Zeva joined the police department in April after Heiko retired in February following a seven year career in law enforcement.

The German shepherd-Belgian malinois mix is still learning some of the ropes of her new job. She's trained to detect narcotics and to track a person's scent, but Baldwin is working with her on improving her apprehension skills before her annual certification test.

Zeva is left alone with the ball. She can't have it until Officer Travis Baldwin gives her permission, which he can do verbally or with a hand signal.
Zeva is left alone with the ball. She can't have it until Officer Travis Baldwin gives her permission, which he can do verbally or with a hand signal.

This need to keep up her training was something Baldwin said surprised him after he applied to be the department's new police dog handler.

"With these dogs, it's different from regular dogs. Most people don't realize how much training it is," Baldwin said.

Baldwin owns other dogs, but when he heads home for the day, Zeva is housed separately from them, to avoid treating her as a house pet. They go through training on her days off to make sure she's ready to go and entertained.

During a 12-hour shift, Baldwin will spend two hours across multiple sessions training with Zeva, particularly on obedience. Along with his department-issued firearm, handcuffs and Taser, Baldwin carries a toy ball on a string as part of his equipment load.

"She's very toy-motivated," Baldwin said.

Outside the Marysville Police Department, the two run through obedience exercises, with play time as a reward. It's important they run through those exercises regularly because obedience training is the lynchpin for Zeva's other skills, and when they do the real thing during a traffic stop there will be a lot of distractions.

"In those situations it's important that she knows my voice and responds to it immediately," Baldwin said.

Zeva and Baldwin trained together for five weeks with Chase K9 Inc. in Sterling Heights, where he learned to direct her while searching for narcotics or tracking a person's scent.

It was a new experience for Baldwin just as much as it was for Zeva. She is the first dog he's worked with as the department's new handler.

Despite his previous experience with dogs, Zeva surprises him with his intelligence, he said. He makes sure never to be consistent about when he gives Zeva a toy to play with so that she doesn't work out a pattern.

So far, most of her work has involved performing air sniffs for drugs during traffic stops, but Baldwin says she can track a scent long after a person has passed through an area, a skillset that will come in handy for missing person cases or runaway suspects.

"For her to be able to smell that odor, the sweat droplets, it's very amazing," Baldwin said.

Contact Johnathan Hogan at jhogan@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @jr_Hogan1.

Marysville Police Officer Travis Baldwin works with Zeva on obedience training. She has to sit before she can have the ball.
Marysville Police Officer Travis Baldwin works with Zeva on obedience training. She has to sit before she can have the ball.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Meet Zeva, Marysville's newest police dog