Middletown police Lieutenant Steve Dollinger remembers the details well:
Red Bank cops needed help investigating a case in which a man was believed to be shipping marijuana hidden in stereo speakers. So they called in Dollinger and Shadow, his canine partner, to execute a search warrant at the massive United Parcel Service facility in Tinton Falls, through which the dope was believed to flow. It wasn’t long before the golden retriever’s wet, black nose led him to a particular box.
“They opened it up, and inside were three five-pound bundles of marijuana, each wrapped with a layer of dryer sheets, shrink-wrap, dryer sheets, shrink-wrap, and a third layer of dryer sheets and shrink-wrap,” Dollinger said. “The speakers were also filled with foam insulation.”
Using the evidence, police did a controlled buy-and-bust, and “they locked up the guy,” Dollinger said.
It was one of thousands such searches and educational demonstrations that Shadow performed in a career that ended earlier this afternoon, when a heavyhearted Dollinger took the ailing 15-year-old dog he calls “my best friend” to be put down because of health issues.
The two met in February, 1999. Dollinger had completed training with the State Police on working with a drug-sniffing dog, planning to revive a canine program that Middletown had tried but abandoned in the early 1980s.
He was hoping to be assigned a German Shepherd, he told redbankgreen. But he got a call about a three-year-old golden up north, went to to take a look, and “as soon as I found Shadow, I fell in love with him,” told Dollinger, who now handles media relations for the department. “We’ve been best friends ever since.”
Shadow lived with Dollinger, but he was not, of course, just a pet. The dog conducted hundreds of traffic-stop searches and warrant-driven searches of homes. He also was a key element in helping police departments in Hazlet, Ewing and elsewhere set up their own canine units, Dollinger said.
In the process, he racked up numerous cases and became a fixture in the department. “He’s been here longer than most of the cops,” said interim Deputy Chief Joe Capriotti.
Shadow worked until the last: in fact, he was in the police station this morning as Dollinger finalized arrangements for his passing. A brief ceremony to honor Shadow was scheduled for department personnel at a veterinarian’s office in Belford, where the animal was put down.
Middletown police currently have a dog being trained to search out explosives, but Dollinger hopes that the department will be able to bring on another drug-sniffer to continue his partner’s contributions to crime-fighting.
“I want to expand on the program and what Shadow started,” he said.
