Columnist Barb Henderson: In memory of a very special retriever

Barb Henderson

Friday, Nov. 7, 2003 | 10:06 a.m.

Barb Henderson is an outdoors enthusiast, freelance writer and producer/host of outdoors radio television programming. Her column appears Friday in the Sun.

For the most part, it is not unusual for me to write about retrievers. In today's column, I will be side-stepping a little from the great outdoors to give tribute to an exceptional Clark County dog.

For nearly 10 years, I have written numerous articles and reported on both television and radio here in southern Nevada about a very special Labrador retriever named Josie, who served as the first arson-detection dog with the Clark County Fire Department.

During this duration, I developed an unique friendship and special fondness toward this lab.

On Nov. 3, the CCFD along with family, friends and members of the community gathered at the Craig Road Pet Cemetery in remembrance of this magnificient canine who gave years of service to Clark County.

The CCFD's Honor Guard buried Josie with a honorable formal fire department ceremony.

Nevada's first accelerant-detection canine was 13 years and 7 months of age. She was a light yellow colored Labrador retriever and served with the Clark County Fire Department (CCFD) from Nov. 11, 1991 until March 9, 2001.

A 4-year-old black Labrador retriever named Wren replaced her.

As a pup, Josie was first chose to be trained as a guide dog, although her destination detoured because she was found to be too hyperactive. She was sold to ATF, whose members envisioned her providing great service work and was eventually donated to the CCFD.

Fire investigator Cliff Mitchell and Josie begun their long journey and life-long friendship actually training together, with the assistance of the Connecticut State Police. The training was based on a food reward system, which meant Cliff and Josie had to train every single day together, since the dog could only eat when she worked.

Everyone, who had an opportunity to watch these two during demonstrations and/or actual investigation work were always impressed with Josie's tremendous sense of smell. She could detect a drop of gasoline in a parking lot that was almost three weeks old.

Interestingly, whenever Josie would detect an accelerant or flammable substance it was mandatory for Cliff to record it, the documented number is approximately 365,000. The Cliff-and-Josie team investigated approximately 250 fires, resulting in 15 arrests with a 100 percent conviction rate.

Josie not only became an important fire investigation tool for the CCFD, she served an important role assisting all of the fire departments in the southern Nevada area, ATF, FBI, National Park Service, Nevada Division of Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, fire departments in Bakersfield, Los Angeles and San Diego, and the Nevada State Fire Marshal's office.

This beautiful light yellow lab also had the honor to serve as a public relations marketing dog for the CCFD, and she did an excellent job winning the heart of this community.

In 2000, I worked with Josie on a "Clark County Outdoors" television program with the Clark County Community Channel, and as always her performance was nothing less than perfect.

After Josie's retirement in 2001, the already strong bond and love between Cliff and Josie grew even stronger when she became a full-time Mitchell family member.

"Josie displayed a love of life as well as a love for people. I think that we should all try to have the same faith in humanity that she did, at least until one had proven unworthy of such faith," said CCFD Fire Investigator Cliff Mitchell.

In many ways, Nevada's first arson detection dog gave true meaning to the saying "man's best friend."