Columnist Susan Snyder: Dog has the smell of success

Friday, Sept. 12, 2003 | 8:23 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Clark County Fire Investigator Mark Passalacqua chose his words carefully.

Wren, his arson-sniffing partner pooch, was lying at his feet as he explained how she lets him know it's time to eat. Wren's meals happen only during daily training sessions or actual fire investigations.

"I know when it's time to w-o-r-k," Passalacqua said. "I can't say it aloud because she's right here."

It's probably only a matter of time before this wonder dog learns to spell.

Wren already has the nose in the know when it comes to big fire investigations. Last week the dog's exquisite olfactory organ unearthed evidence that someone deliberately set a Sept. 4 blaze that ripped through the 349-apartment Firenze complex that was under construction.

For two days a 19-member team of federal and county investigators armed with experience and high-tech devices looked for what caused the $15 million blaze. In the end, Wren's wondrous whiffer turned up the chemical compound, linking it to a deliberate act.

"Her nose is more sensitive than the $80,000 mass spectrometer up at the forensics lab," Passalacqua said.

We don't need to know what a mass spectromwhatever is to figure this not-so-average schnozzle must belong to an above-average pooch.

"She's almost human," Passalacqua said. "She's the daughter I never had. She hangs around here in the office, and checks people out up and down the hallway.

"At home she loves swimming in the pool, and she's got the reign of the house," he said. "I'm trying to figure out how to put her on my income taxes."

It's hard to believe Wren is a guide-dog school dropout.

But Passalacqua says a lot of the arson dogs trained by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are ones found unfit to assist people who are visually impaired.

"When they don't meet the criteria, the ATF says, 'Here's a dog that's already obedience trained,' and they take them," he said.

Wren, who is nearly 5, joined the Clark County Fire Department as Passalacqua's partner in June 2000. The investigator was matched with the black Labrador retriever after a series of interviews and questionnaires and an eight-week training session at the ATF headquarters in Virginia.

Wren, who never took to the kennel life led by the other ATF arson dogs, was living with a foster family. Dividing the family was tough.

"It was like taking their first-born from the house," Passalacqua said. "But you couldn't have made a better match."

And Clark County couldn't ask for a better nose. Wren also sniffed out evidence that May's Moulin Rouge fire was deliberately set. But then, it's in her genes, Passalacqua said.

"Dogs can break layers down on smells," he said. "It's like chili. When we walk into the house, we can smell whatever's cooking. Wren can actually break down the layers -- the fats, meats, spices."

Wren's future holds about five years of fire investigations then retirement to family dog status. She's not suited to other lines of work.

"Could I use Wren as an attack dog? No," Passalacqua said. "She'd go after the guy, play with him then fall over on her back."