Ghost, First Deaf K-9 Dog, Spared From Death Row To Fight Crime

OLYMPIA, WA — For a time, death seemed certain for Ghost. The 2-year-old white pit bull mix with brown eyes can’t hear — likely the reason he was abandoned to begin with — and after months of unsuccessfully trying to get someone to adopt the dog, a Florida animal shelter that focuses on at-risk animals put him on its euthanasia list.

Now, Ghost is a full-time crime fighter and sniffs out narcotics and other drugs at prisons and juvenile detention centers for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. He is the first deaf K-9 officer in Washington, and believed to be the first in the country.

A rambunctious dog with a lot of energy, he didn’t settle in well at the Swamp Haven Rescue in St. Augustine, Florida. He tore through a kennel, and had even destroyed the inside of a car when he was left in it.

His reprieve from death row came after Swamp Haven made a final attempt to place the dog, named Gator at the time, and got in touch with the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society in Port Angeles. The Humane Society took in the deaf dog turned crimefighter, but the future still looked bleak.

“Not only was he deaf, but he was a very high-energy, untrained dog. And he was a pit mix,” Dr. Suzy Zustiak of the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society told NBC’s “Today” show, adding there were “pretty much three strikes against him.”

The Humane Society operates a no-kill shelter, but seeing Ghost languish there rubbed Zustiak the wrong way. So she got ahold of veteran K-9 narcotics dog trainer Barbara Davenport with the Washington Department of Corrections and asked if Ghost could do the job.

Ghost nailed his trials.

Davenport, who has trained more than 450 drug detection dogs, told “Today” Ghost doesn’t exhibit responses that are typical for deaf dogs, such as “fearful body language or startle-reflex.”

And distracting him from his toys? Forget it.

Ghost’s other senses are keen and his inability to hear “seems to make him even more focused,” Davenport, who has trained more than 450 drug detection dogs, told KING-TV.

Ghost went through 240 hours of training special training with his current handler, Joe Henderson, who communicates using hand signals and a vibration collar. On the job, Ghost has already sniffed out drugs at a juvenile facility, Henderson, the K-9 program manager for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, told KING-TV.

“He is an absolute working machine,” Hendersontold ABC News. “He’s a very high-drive dog with lots of energy.”

Ghost probably has a 10-year career ahead of him, Henderson told ABC.

No-kill shelters like the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society take on dogs that are difficult to place for adoption, but that have lots of potential.

“Once you give them a job, they’re excellent at it,” he told ABC. “Without a job, they’re kind of lost.”
Davenport is thrilled with the outcome.

“The best part of my job is to take dogs that are considered unadoptable to the general public because of their behavioral problems ... and match them up with the right handler and let them serve the community," she told “Today.”

Photo courtesy of the Washington Department of Social and Health Service