The lunch bell rings at Newton Middle School in Littleton. As students and teachers walk to the cafeteria, they see student resource officer Travis Jones — but it’s Jones’s partner who gets the most attention. Zeke, a two-year-old black lab, even gets a few pets along the way.
The dog is a calming presence at the school. Eighth-grader Maeve Vancik calls him a celebrity.
“I get to see Zeke almost every day at lunch, and he's in the hallways a lot, so we always get to say hi to him,” Vancik said.
But outside of the school, he’s a hard-nosed electronics detection dog for the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. He helps locate electronic devices such as laptops, cellphones, and USB drives that contain explicit and illegal content like child pornography. Zeke is one of four electronic-sniffing dogs in Colorado.
Beginnings
Zeke is part of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office’s dog unit which includes four black labs and one chocolate lab. This breed was chosen for its friendly temperament and that it’s a working breed. Their main gig is as therapy dogs. Two are assigned to Cherry Creek schools. Two are assigned to Littleton schools. One is assigned to Deer Trail Schools.
In addition to being therapy dogs, most are trained to detect guns, explosives, and substances.
Jones, the son of a retired Aurora Police officer and a 15-year veteran with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, wanted to become a student resource officer with a police dog after the impact it had on an autistic student who was in the sixth grade and had trouble adjusting to a new school.
Jones recalled the interaction with the first therapy dog, Rex, in which a father thanked him and said.
“My daughter didn't want to come to middle school yesterday, met Rex and wanted to come to school today,” said Jones.
“So if these dogs are the reason why a kid wants to go to school and perfect, right. We know as law enforcement, it's the safest place for them to be and that's where we want them.”
Jones has been a school resource officer for four years now. Zeke was sworn in as the office’s second therapy dog in April 2022. He’s named after a police dog who worked alongside Jones' dad. Police departments for Aurora and Colorado Springs and the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office also use electronics detection dogs.
The duties of an electronics detection dogs
Police dogs are widely known to help apprehend criminals and search for evidence such as drugs, explosives, and firearms.
Zeke helps the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit search for electronics containing child pornography. Electronic detection dogs are searching for devices such as laptops, USB drives, cellphones, SD cards, and credit cards that might lead to illegal content.
“The search warrant would already say they can take any computers, laptops, any devices that could contain or store that illegal material. They already have that,” Jones said. “So we'll run him, he'll search, he'll indicate an area. Sometimes I can obviously see in that area that there's some sort of electronic device and he gets rewarded, a food treat.”
Zeke and other police dogs train once a month at Twain Elementary School in Centennial. The school no longer has students and teachers. But learning continues in the building — at least for the dogs. Each room has stacks of tables and desks. Electronic devices are hidden throughout the entire room.
“A lot of the training, we'll do solo and then once a month we meet up as a group and we do a planned out training with specific goals in mind for what we're going to do for that training day,” Jones said.
Jones explains there is a particular chemical that these types of dogs are looking for when they search for these types of devices.
“It's a universal coating that is on all of those things. It's a fire retardant designed to keep it cool and it goes on at manufacturing. Anything with a green board or a waffle chip, he can even find,” Jones said. “So we may also find stuff like wireless gaming controllers. We find those. So, he doesn't know the difference. He just knows the odor. He doesn't know the difference between a cell phone and an air tag on your credit card.”
The first electronic detection dog was used by the Connecticut State Patrol. Selma, a black lab, began duty in October 2013.
Police dogs have been used in high-profile busts. Bear was vital in two of Indiana's biggest cases that garnered national attention. The then-two-year-old black lab played a role in locating devices containing child pornography at the Indianapolis suburban home of former Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle. Bear later found devices containing thousands of pornographic images of children at the home of U.S. Olympics Gymnastics coach Marvin Sharp.
Zeke’s Biggest Bust
Zeke was dispatched on his first search warrant in May 2023. He was able to find a USB in a piece of furniture.
His biggest bust came in February. A search warrant was issued to a Centennial home. According to the arrest affidavit, deputies received a cyber tip that child pornography had been uploaded from a platform in Centennial.
When deputies arrived at the home, Zeke quickly located the 20 cell phones containing illegal content in some luggage near a nightstand and a bed. Jones couldn’t believe Zeke was able to find it so fast.
“He hit that area so fast. I almost didn't believe it,” Jones said. “And then they tell me after the fact that there were originally 20-something cell phones down there, and I was like, “Oh, well, no wonder he hit it fast because we never train with that much.’ ”
The suspect was arrested and charged with felony sexual exploitation of children.
Zeke’s big bust probably wasn’t his biggest win that day. The suspect’s wife, who was unaware and not involved in the case, was upset at the scene. Zeke is a therapy dog first, so Jones took Zeke over to see her.
“He went and sat with her, and she petted him for a while,” Jones said.
Just a normal dog
Back at Newton Middle School, there isn’t a crisis every day, but Zeke helps them get through the stress of school.
Julian Schultz is an eighth grader. He said Zeke has helped him get through test days.
“I've heard he's been pretty helpful to other students. I mean, especially whenever someone's agitated or anything, he'll always help calm the situation down,” Schultz said. “Before tests at lunch, I get a little nervous sometimes. So, it's kind of nice to just pet Zeke.”
English teacher Melanie Sutton is always happy to see Zeke after teaching classes throughout the day.
“When you get to this time in the year when the sun's a little bit warmer and everyone just wants to be outside. We're all on the same page. We're basically middle school students ourselves,” Sutton said. “He will sit on you for as long as you want. And he just helps to just calm everything down and you can squeeze him.”
After performing his duties, he goes home with Jones, and he’s a normal house dog.
“I have young kids, they play with him just like any other kids would do with a two-year-old dog. And so he's just a stay-at-home dog when we're off duty. It's really funny. He's actually a little more crazy and wild at home,” Jones.
