Billy on patrol in Soap Lake

SOAP LAKE — Billy sits anxiously still, focused and alert. He knows exactly what’s behind the closed door.

A mostly deflated soccer ball. It’s his toy, and when he gets hold of it he will chew on it. Mercilessly. Eventually, Billy will chew it until it’s ripped up and unusable.

Which is okay, said Billy’s handler, Soap Lake Police Sgt. Spencer Nulph. He has a big plastic tub full of these soccer balls, so there are still plenty to chew through.

“Billy is the most social police dog I’ve ever known,” Nulph said of his partner, one of the newest members of the Soap Lake Police Department. “He’s very well-trained. He knows what he’s doing and he’s really good at it.”

Billy, a Belgian Tervuren (basically a long-haired Malinois, or Belgian Shepherd, Nulph said) “joined” the SLPD last year, after a whirlwind campaign in the spring and early summer to raise around $27,000 to add a dual-purpose dog — an animal who can detect drugs and bite suspects on command — to the seven-officer police department.

A Yakima native, who originally wanted to be a lawyer, but decided to join law enforcement after spending some time watching police officers work, Nulph became Billy’s handler because he has always liked anti-drug work, even when he was a community corrections officer supervising former prison inmates who had been released.

“I love narcotics investigations. It’s my bread and butter,” Nulph said. “I really like the cerebral aspect of narcotics. It’s like cat-and-mouse. They’re always trying to conceal what they’re doing.”

“It’s a whole different underworld, and it really intrigued me,” Nulph added.

‘That dog has a switch’

Nulph said department leaders chose Billy during his first visit to Vohne Liche Kennels in March 2020. Based in Denver, Indiana, with an office and training center in Banning, California, Vohne Liche is very likely the premier private law enforcement and military dog training center in the country, preparing dogs used by the Army, U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Nulph said he wasn’t sure he would have a dog with the right temperament, since many law enforcement dogs he encountered through the years were “high speed, low drive dogs.” However, as soon as he met Billy, Nulph said he knew he was perfect for a canine partner.

“I wanted one that fits my personality,” Nulph said. “He’s very mellow and laid back, but when it’s time to go, he goes. There’s no messing around.”

“That’s kind of how I run my police shift. I’m very mellow, laid back, easy going, willing to listen to people that have reasonable arguments,” Nulph added. “I’m very open-minded when it comes to practicing law enforcement. But when stuff goes sideways, I can immediately react to that. I know when it’s time to get serious. And Billy is the exact same way. That dog has a switch that I’ve never seen in a police dog before.”

Many U.S. police dogs are bred and raised in Europe, Nulph said, with some very basic training done by trainers and foster families in the Czech Republic. Still, Nulph needed to spend several weeks with Billy in Southern California, learning to work together as the dog was trained.

While currently certified to detect drugs, Billy was also trained to bite on command. However, Soap Lake police are working on getting Billy certified for that.

Nulph said it was several intense weeks of learning to detect heroin, methamphetamine, crack and powder cocaine — not marijuana, since that’s legal in Washington state — in junkyards, abandoned shopping malls and train stations, wherever law enforcement found space for them train.

“He took to it instantly,” Nulph said.

Billy is a “passive alert dog,” Nulph said.

That is, he doesn’t bark or scratch when he smells something, he just sits. Like he did at the door of the room where he knew his soccer ball was.

And Nulph will hand him a toy to play with, a reward for a job correctly done.

Not a pet

Billy lives at home with Nulph, but in a specially-built house in a custom-built kennel volunteers created for Billy. Nulph said while Billy “has the temperament of a pet,” he’s a working dog and needs to remember that.

“We do exercise and socialization, but the dog doesn’t sleep in bed with you, the dog doesn’t eat dinner with you. The dog is a work dog. And the more you make him a pet, the less functionality he’s going to have as a work dog,” Nulph said.

Even with that, Nulph said once a month he takes Billy to different places around the state for continued training to keep his skills sharp. But even with the calls for assistance, often Billy’s mere presence is enough to prompt a suspect to fess up.

“I ask the interdiction questions, I read body language, it’s subtle things, like perspiring when it’s cold, swallowing hard, how big are their pupils,” Nulph said. “I’m looking for all that stuff. I don’t even have to get Billy out. I just explained who I was, what I was doing, why I was there, and they’ll cop to it.”

“Because they know, shoot, I can’t conceal this. I’m not going to be able to hide it because they have a dog,” he added.

However, Nulph said having a drug-detecting dog is not magic. The dog can only give a police officer probable cause to do a search, and nothing else.

“If somebody gives you consent, don’t ask for me. You have consent. You don’t need my dog,” he said. “If you search the car, and don’t find anything, don’t call me. That means you either didn’t do a good enough search or there’s nothing there.”

“There’s no need,” added Soap Lake Police Chief Ryan Cox. “You can tear the car apart all you want if you have a warrant; the judge already said go ahead.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.