CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- One of the best sniffers in the South lives and works in Chesterfield County, Virginia. Clover is a five-year-old Fox Red Labrador Retriever who works with Chesterfield Fire Marshal Lt. Carlos Shedd as an accelerant detection dog.
Shedd said Clover's skillful smell saves investigators both time and money.
"Without her, we would spend hours, we're talking 10 to 40 hours, to acquire what we can acquire with her in an afternoon," Shedd said.
Clover was bred and raised by the program Puppies Behind Bars, which pairs incarcerated people with dogs and then became an accelerant detection dog through a program between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and local agencies. There are 62 other dogs like her around the country.
Her brother Dutch became a bomb-sniffing dog with the ATF.
As her job title implies, Clover is brought out to the scenes of expected arsons where she uses her much more powerful nose to detect the presence of accelerants.
"Out there [in the field], there is one-quarter of a drop of diesel. And that one-quarter of a drop, she can still go ahead and find it in this field four months from now," Shedd said. "She can do an entire football field or soccer field and in -- we're talking 30 seconds."
Clover is the county's second detection dog.
The first, Hero, retired over a decade ago and has since passed away.
Shedd said when Clover started in 2019, they were getting about one call a week.
Now, as the region she serves becomes aware of the option again, they're called eight to 12 times a month.
They were recently called to a car fire tied to a homicide in Richmond. Clover did not get any hits on the car but did pull Shedd to another area where they found bullet casings, something she's not trained to find.
"Our theory is that the arsonist set the vehicle on fire and then grabbed those bullets with whatever remains of fuel there may have been on the hand," Shedd said.
In addition to sniffing, Clover also serves as a fire safety educator when she joins Shedd in his work as part of the department's peer support team.
"It's always amazing to see the firefighters react to her and open up," Shedd said. "She comes to a firehouse and the firehouse just lights up."
Shedd said the ultimate goal is to work with Clover another four years and then retire together.
"We can then spend quality retirement time in four years together."
And Clover will get a step closer to that milestone on Friday, when she turns six.
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