K-9 Officer Harris is the Princeton Police Department’s first police dog
By Scott Morgan
Let’s get something clear. Cpl. Matt Solovay doesn’t get to play with a dog for a living. Like Solovay, Harris, the Princeton Police Department’s first K-9 officer, is a trained professional. He needs to stay fit and healthy and be able to keep up with the rigors of the job, whatever the day brings. And that’s not something just any 16-month-old can do.
Harris comes to the department thanks to a full grant from the Department of Homeland Security (the amount of which has not been released) and about seven years of lobbying by Solovay. He also comes to the department from the Czech Republic, where, Solovay says, many of the finest police dogs in U.S. departments come from.
“Most dogs in law enforcement in New Jersey come from Europe,” Solovay says. Statistically, European dogs are trained better, from birth, specifically to function as police officers.
Still, not all dogs, European or not, go to law enforcement heaven. Police dogs are not pets, after all. Which means they don’t get to sit around watching “Jeopardy” on the couch like Solovay’s own pet, a 5-year-old lab. “He’s probably the opposite of a police dog,” Solovay laughs.
Actual police dogs need to have an intense work ethic and unending stamina. They can’t get bored or tired on the job, they need to remain ready for action and be able to take action the moment action is needed. And, Solovay says, they need an exceptional play drive.
You see, fundamentally, a police dog’s day is play. That’s why the dog’s off-duty home life should be kept as boring as possible, Solovay says. There’s no spirited play at home with Harris. He is a work dog, and to keep him ready for work, Solovay must make sure that the shift is the most exciting part of Harris’ day.
Harris himself was unavailable for comment, but Solovay, Harris’ sole handler, explains it this way: You want to make sure that when you open the car door in the morning, the dog thinks “Aww, yeah” and runs into his special compartment to get to work, whether it’s sniffing out bombs or drugs or missing persons.
The play drive comes in on the fact that for Harris, work is actually play time. “When you try to find an explosive device, it’s all a game to him,” Solovay says. “It’s fascinating how they think it’s all play.”
Police spokesman Sgt. Steven Riccitello said Harris will be used to locate missing or endangered persons, as well as tracking suspects fleeing apprehension. He will be particularly useful in locating missing victims suffering from mind-altering illnesses.
“It’s an added security and resource for the police department to serve the community,” he said, adding that the municipality and police force have become larger since the consolidation of the township and the borough last year, and the K9 unit will bring added reinforcement and crime detection.
For the moment, Harris is a bomb dog. He and Solovay just completed a 14-week (and quite grueling) course on bomb scent detection with the N.J. State Police. And in case you’re wondering how grueling it was, 15 dogs started the course and two washed out.
In September, Solovay and Harris will begin an even-more-grueling 19-week course that will teach Harris to track missing children, Alzheimer’s patients who wander away, suspects, and drugs. It will also teach him to clear buildings in the event of an emergency, which in the post-9/11 world is a key advantage — especially in a place like Princeton, Solovay says.
There is a lot of high-level infrastructure here. Also, Princeton University attracts world dignitaries and highly important people, from literary giants all the way up to presidents — prime targets for those looking to make a statement that no one in the Princeton Police Department wants made.
So an officer like Harris is a welcome addition for sure. The department, Solovay says, has had access to police dogs before, but never one of its own. Neighboring departments have, when able, loaned their dogs to Princeton. But reread that sentence and notice the very large caveat: when available. Getting a dog from an outside agency, from municipal departments to the State Police, has often enough been a stumbling block. Having one at the ready, however, is a genuine game changer.
“It’s a legitimate force multiplier,” Solovay says. In other words, having a K-9 officer is like having several officers, and in some cases is better than having several human officers on a scene. A dog like Harris, after all, can sniff out an explosive compound in a few minutes, whereas it might take human officers hours they might not have.
Solovay petitioned the old Princeton Township Committee for years on these very grounds to get a K-9 officer. The trouble is the money. “The implementation costs are the big thing,” Solovay says. “The dog comes from the Czech Republic, so it costs money to ship him over. Then there’s the training and equipment, like vests. Leashes. You need a K-9-compatible vehicle. It’s a lot.”
The full grant from the DHS pays for all these things, as well as the special climate control setup that keeps the police vehicle temperate while Harris is inside. It doesn’t pay for food, though. The officers pay for that, Solovay says.
However, the price of getting the grant is that Harris must be able to work his job and be available in case an emergency happens. One of the conditions of having a K-9 officer for the department is membership in the State Police’s Detect and Render Safe Task Force.
According to the State Police, the task force exists as a kind of consortium that brings the state’s K-9 officers together for threat detection and security needs, as needed.
Harris’ first assignment was the Special Olympics, held last month at Princeton University and other venues in the region. “We did security sweeps,” Solovay says. “We had him out for eight hours a day, and he worked, in my opinion, spectacularly.”
The “we” in that last statement is somewhat relative. Only Solovay handles Harris and only Solovay touches him. Even other officers do not, much less the public.
Part of the reason is the obvious safety issue, Solovay says. Kids, for example, may have a dog at home and may do things like pull its tail or ears.
But remember, a police dog is not a pet. One probably would not react kindly to a tail-yanking by a 4-year-old. And the last thing anyone wants is for a feisty police dog with high chase and play drives to get startled by a child (or adult) who wants to play with the cute doggie.
The other reason is professionalism. In this training period, especially, Solovay says, Harris is still learning his role an he needs to learn who’s really the one in charge.
And that’s all Solovay. Letting other people pet him or touch him would confuse the dog about his role and sense of duties. And, really, you don’t want the public handling a police dog and becoming familiar with an animal that is supposed to help catch people who might not want a free ride in the back of a squad car.
If you’re wondering about the name, by the way, Solovay named Harris after a fallen Princeton Borough officer, Walter Harris, who died in the line of duty in 1946.
As a township officer, Solovay was aware of another, fallen, township officer named Billy Ellis. He wanted to name the dog after a killed police officer, following a longstanding tradition in many departments that have K-9 units, and learned that chronologically, Harris was the first Princeton officer slain on duty.
It was an especially poignant set of circumstances in addition to the tradition that earned K-9 Harris his name. At the time Princeton got its new colleague, Solovay, now 32, was 31 years of age, the same age Officer Harris was when he died. Officer Harris also had two small children, as does Solovay, so the name seemed especially fitting to him.
However, Solovay is hoping Harris works out as well as he so far has and that Harris’ performance will justify getting a second K-9 officer that Solovay (if he is the handler) would name after Ellis.
Solovay himself grew up in Edison, where as a child he saw a local officer demonstrate his department’s K-9 officer in school. Later, after graduating from Seton Hall University with his criminal justice bachelor’s, Solovay saw a second K-9 display at the Union County Police Academy, where he attended.
He knew then that he’d want a K-9 partner, but didn’t start lobbying for one until three years on the job. Solovay also holds a master’s in administrative sciences from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
To get the K-9 handler gig, Solovay beat out several Princeton officers who wanted the job. He doesn’t know how many, he only knows he’s proud to initiate the unified department’s first K-9 unit. There was, however, a K-9 officer in the township department back in the 1960s.
As the handler, it’s Solovay’s job to see that Harris stays fit and healthy and able to perform his duties. And while Harris gets no formal salary or benefits, he will become Solovay’s pet when the dog retires, whether due to injury, illness, or old age.
In the meantime, and presumably for many years, Harris gets to do something at work that Solovay, remember, does not — play. “Ultimately, he’s doing everything for a reward,” Solovay says. “And it’s a rolled-up towel. That’s all he wants.”
Harris, the Princeton Police Department’s first K-9 officer, with his handler, Cpl. Matt Solovay. (Photo courtesy of the Princeton Police.),
