Robin's Nest from American Humane - Hero Dog Cody and Handler James Overton

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

In this episode, Robin talks with Hero Dog Cody and her handler James Overton. Cody was the winner of the Hero Dog Awards Law Enforcement Category in 2020. K-9 Cody was a police dog who specialized in bomb detection and began her career at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Robin and James talk about this special dog and the role of working dogs in police and military work.

Welcome to Robin's Nest. So many of us have a deep connection with the animals around us and want to protect them from the pets in our homes to endangered species in the wild. That's why I joined American Humane. As one of the oldest and most effective animal protection groups, we help billions of animals around the world. Join us as we explore how we can build a more humane world together. Hello and welcome to Robin's Nest. I'm Dr. Robin Ganzert and this is the official podcast of American Humane and Global Humane, the nation's first and most experienced humane organization focused on the protection of animals all over the world, including certifying zoos and aquariums, being the first boots on the ground in crisis and rescues,

making sure animals are safe in the filming of movies on sets globally, protecting a billion animals on farms, and our military veteran and military dog programs. There's so much to talk about with American Humane's power to touch lives and keep animals safe and loved. And today we're focusing on one of the most remarkable dogs in the world, Cody, the 2020 American Humane Hero Dog Award winner in the law enforcement category, and his handler, James Overton. We are so glad you, our listeners, are taking the time to hear some remarkable stories, and we want to hear what you think after you've listened. Please make sure to review the Robin's Nest podcast on your podcast platform. I am so excited to introduce you to our guests today, Handler James and Cody, the American Humane Hero Dog Award winner from 2020 in the law enforcement category.

And Handler James Overton, truly heroes on both ends of the leash. Welcome, James and Cody. She's such a good girl. I can see her. Hi, Cody. It's great to see you. It's great to see you too, Robin. I hope you've been doing well. I have. I have. And I know you, my friend, have been very, very busy. And Cody is now very busy in a different phase of her life. But before we hear all updates on what's going on, I want to take our listeners back to learn a little bit more about you, James. You're one of America's heroes. You've served in our incredible armed forces. You've also served with the State Department. You've served with canines and law enforcement. You have done

it all to make the world better and safer. Please share with everyone listening today to Robbins Nest about a little bit about you, James. Oh, God, you make it sound a lot cooler than it actually is. It's really not that great, but I appreciate the awesome introduction. So I did eight years in the U.S. Army, first as a Cav Scout and then military police. After that, I did a short stint as a DOD police officer. And then from there, I went to work with the State Department doing diplomatic security overseas. And that's kind of where my passion for working with dogs really started. I had adopted one of our dogs from overseas, Ada. Unfortunately, you never got a chance to meet Ada.

She was amazing. But I adopted her. The State Department had a mandatory retirement at age nine. And so I adopted her. The State Department had a mandatory retirement at age nine. And so I adopted her and she's kind of what got me into the canine field by accident, actually. So I ended up getting a buddy of mine, the contract for canine support for Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. And he's like, hey, man, he's like, you live right near the Williamsburg Busch Gardens Park. You want to be my canine handler? And I was like, it'd be a dream come true. But I don't know the first thing about canine. He's like, well, come out to Minnesota for a couple months. You know, I'll get you trained

up and then you can go to work with Ada. You know, she's still got a lot of life left in her. And the rest is kind of history. That was 10 years ago. And I've been doing canine ever since. So that's actually where I met Cody. That was with Dan Hughes. Dan Hughes's dog, Adak, was with Dan Hughes. Dan Hughes' dog, Adak, was a hero dog. And so that was kind of how I found out about getting into canine. Dan helped me get into canine and Cody belonged to Dan. And then he gave me Cody to be my partner. And then he let me keep Cody and Cody's become part of the family now. And you know, the rest of that history. So. I sure do. I sure do. How's Dan doing by the way? He's doing great. He's working with TSA and he's still, he's still handling Dogs for Defense, his company. And BDAC, which was ADAC's son, I believe is still going strong. I believe he's

eight years old, but still working. They do a lot of concert venues and stuff out in the Minnesota area. So yeah, so they're, they're doing great. They're doing lot of concert venues and stuff out in the Minnesota area. So yeah, so they're doing great. They're doing great. That's wonderful. Well, James, you're one of my favorite people in the space, one of my favorite handlers for a very special dog, K9 Cody, who's right there. I love Cody. I always love when Cody comes to visit. A lot of fun to have you both around. Can you please share with everybody inside Robin's Nest what's going on with Cody and a little bit about her amazing backstory because she's quite the hero dog. She is. She's the one that has the impressive resume.

I'm really just the dumb guy that holds the leash for her. She makes my job very, very easy. But as the story goes with her, so she did two years in Iraq at the U.S. Embassy doing explosive detection over there. And then she was transferred back to Minnesota, working with Dan Hughes and Dogs for Defense. And she was doing explosive detection for the Mall of America, Minnesota Vikings. And then right about that time is when I got hooked up with Dan doing dogs. And then right about that time is when I got hooked up with Dan doing dogs. And then he transferred Cody to me.

And ever since then, it's kind of been a hundred miles an hour for Cody and I, we we were doing stuff for bush gardens, amusement park. We've done concert venues, Philadelphia Eagles. Her most recent her most recent event was the Taylor Swift concert. Wow. The Taylor Swift fans are they are a lot to handle. And they are a dedicated bunch of them. We want to talk to you about the Taylor Swift fans. Please tell us about, number one, the Heiress Tour. But importantly, what was going on with K9 Cody?

Well, so we were there, obviously, to sweep the venue. We do a lot of stuff with the Lincoln financial field, which is where they had the concert. Um, and so they brought us in the day before and I, I didn't realize I'm not a Taylor Swift fan. I'm sorry. All you Taylor Swift fans and Taylor Swift. Um, my daughters, you're not yet one James, you're not yet one. You will be one day. Her name is great, it's just not for me. But yeah, it was, my daughters were extremely jealous that I was getting to work the Taylor Swift concert. And all of a sudden they wanted to be canine handlers for the weekend. But yeah, it was very, very interesting. You know, we do a lot of the football games up there and, you know, the Philly fans are crazy.

But it was crazy to see that not only was it a three-day concert, but she had sold out that entire concert venue three days in a row. It was more people there than it was for the football games. And then there was like another 4,000 people outside the stadium that didn't even have tickets that just wanted to hear her voice. So, yeah, it was pretty interesting. Cody got to take her picture inside of Taylor's dressing room next to all the outfits and stuff that she had and got to take her picture with some of the background dancers and all that stuff.

We didn't get to meet Taylor, and I imagine she's very, very busy. But, yeah, so Cody was there. So Cody's 12 years old now. So she's getting up there in age, starting to slow down just a little bit. We don't mention that R word retirement around Cody too often. She doesn't like that R word very much. But she does get tired a little bit faster than she used to. She's getting close to my pace because I get tired pretty quick nowadays. than she used to kind of, she's getting close to my pace. Cause I get tired pretty quick nowadays. I can't believe that. She still keeps me going pretty fast. But, uh, so I had her up there with my other partner, Dexter, the, uh, the trouble black lab that we, uh, we will talk about later.

So she's still working strong. We still do a lot of stuff with the, uh, the local school district here, Hampton city schools. Um, the kids absolutely adore absolutely adore Cody. She's just, she's not your typical canine, you know. She looks aggressive when you see her from a distance, but as you know, she is a big baby. She loves people and she loves those kids at the school. She loves going in there and prancing around like she's top dog. You know, we passed out the trading cards, you know, to the kids, the kids, the kids have saved their trading her trading cards since the first day that they met two years ago. So she still comes in there with me. She's got to show all the young dogs, you know, how, how,

how it's done properly. But yeah, she's, she's great. I I've been teaching quite a bit lately, the new handlers and stuff. And we use Cody as the kind of the benchmark, Hey, this is the way that your dog should look. So she kind of helps set the tone for the new classes coming in. She's the gold standard, that's for sure. And, you know, America was so lucky to be able to hear her story in 2020. And if you recall, in 2020, we were all in the midst of, you know, COVID and everything else that happened. The world had changed. And yet we all got to learn much more about K-9's Cody's heartwarming story

and really learn more about the type of work that you as a handler and that she does. Because a lot of people never understood detection dogs until the Hero Dog Awards came along and started to educate so many millions every year as to the incredible role of working dogs in our lives. So let's go back to 2020 and the Hero Dog Awards. Tell me, what was that experience like for you as the human? It's still so surreal. Like I have never been one for the spotlight, nor will I ever be one for the spotlight. I never thought I'd find myself on camera, let alone walk in a red carpet. And that's just, that stuff just is very foreign to me. And to be part of that and to see the recognition that these dogs get, there's such

a misconception out there with canines and what canines actually do for us. You know, a lot of people, they've either watched cops on TV or they saw John Wick with those awesome dogs that Halle Berry had. And they think that those were, that's what canines do. They attack people and catch bad guys. And there's so many other facets out there that these dogs are, you know, these things, these dogs do for us. And it's just, that's not even scratching the surface of what these, what these dogs do. And so I think it's great to be able to tell those stories and share all this stuff with, you know, that the dogs are doing for folks, you know, I mean, I think a lot of people are starting to figure out, you know,

the service dogs and companion dogs, therapy dogs, that's starting to become mainstream. But I still think people have a huge lack of awareness for all the different types of working dogs out there, you know, and as there's so many things that everything from like the COVID detector dog program that we were doing, that your veterinarian friend sat in on with us, you know, everything from that to, you know, there's firearms detection, working in schools. There's just so many things that these dogs do for us.

And it's great for you guys to be able to shine a spotlight on that and recognize the dogs for those things. That's beautiful. That's beautiful, James. We're happy to do that. And of course, it's so easy to tell the story of law enforcement canines through Cody and her great story, and especially able to make it relevant to people because so many people went to the Taylor Swift concert. Now they know So many people went to the Taylor Swift concert. Now they know their safety measures were in the hands of four incredible paws, you know, and a wagging tail of Cody, that these incredible life-saving measures are happening to keep people safe because of men like you and, you know, and dogs like Cody.

So it's really, really wonderful to show those stories because people do. We want to be able to feel safe going to the Taylor Swift concert. We want to feel safe sending our kids to school. We want to feel safe, you know, going to the football game on a Sunday afternoon. These are all things that, you know, are venues, part of the community, activities that we lost so much of during COVID, right? And yet we recognize that there's an element that could provide some challenges to all of us enjoying a peaceful and wonderful event. Criminal elements can happen and these dogs are there to stop it. And people like you are on the front lines. They're there in the background. And most of the time, most of the time people don't even know we're there. At the Taylor Swift concert, we had 20

canine teams that were there. And they were all up and down the East coast. Most of them are all veterans that were there serving in another capacity after the military service, you know, with their canine partners and dogs, just like Cody, you know, that were out there doing it. And people oftentimes they don't see those, those measures and, you know, they don't need to see that though. They just need to feel safe. And, you know, we don't want them to have to worry about that. But it's nice for these guys, for these dogs. I mean, that, that, that first day we worked 20 hours that first day between my two canine partners and we were all exhausted, but that's what they live for. That's what these dogs live for. That's all they want. You know, they want their ball and they want, they want their, their scratch behind the ears.

And, you know, obviously Cody gets to cuddle up with me in the hotel because she doesn't get to sleep in the bed at home and that's okay. But yeah, so it's, yeah, it's, it's awesome. We love what we do. You know, I'll, I'm not a big people person. I do make exceptions for you and some of your staff, but I'm not a big fan of people, but I love dogs, you know, and there's no other career in the world that I would rather do. James, we're so proud to know you. Thank you so much. Now, I know Cody doesn't want to hear the R word of retirement for everybody inside Robin's Nest, and we don't want Cody to retire either, but I know she is slowing down a little, as we all do at 12 years old.

But I want to back up, dog years, my friends. I want to back up and hear about your new K-9 partner, because this black lab is quite a cutie patootie, too. Tell us about him. Yeah, so my new partner is Dexter. He is a black lab trained for the same things that Cody is as well, explosives and firearms detection. He is a ball of energy. He is four years old. And he was previously trained for the Marine Corps' off-leash canine program overseas.

But then as that started to draw down with all of those things, we repurposed him. And so now he's my new partner. And let's just say that he's a big fan of my narcotics dog. So he may or may not have spent some personal time with her and ended up getting her pregnant. And she ended up having nine puppies that look nothing like her, but they all look like the black lab. So I call them Shepador in those because she's a German Shepherd, Belgian Malmix, and he's a lab. I kept the two craziest out of there. And that's the picture I sent you is Hunter is his name.

He's 11 months old and has already certified. He's incredible. I started training him on odor probably around six months, odor detection, just little things, making it fun for him. Wow. I did the, I went all in. I thought maybe I would be able to get into breeding, you know, not breeding labs and shepherds. Cause that's just a no, no. But

you know, I thought maybe doing puppy raising, I will never, ever do that again. I don't wish it on my worst enemy. That was so much work. But it was, it was very intensive, but I did all the exposures to new environments and socialization. I've got pictures taking them into the local hospitals. I wheeled the whole, I had a whole basket of nine little cuddly puppies that I wheeled into the emergency room for the nurses and doctors and staff to kind of see as like a morale booster for them. And I'm pretty sure all the patient care stopped for about that 30 minutes that I was in there with the puppies. But great morale booster, but it's also great for the dogs, you know, for socialization and building up that with them. And I had soundtracks that I

would play while they would eat, like gunfire and fireworks and loud trucks and trains and pretty much any loud noise I had on a soundtrack that I would blast while they were eating. My wife would come home, she'd say, what is that sound? What is playing right now? I'm like, oh, the dogs are eating, you know. But yeah. So the one puppy, the one son, Hunter is his name. He is also. So I have two bomb dogs plus Cody and then I have two narcotics dogs as well. So I have a full truck that I travel around with quite often. So, yes, you sure do. You sure do. James, tell us, you know, what exactly does a detection dog do? Because I think that's people get confused and

detection is in so many different areas now of really impacting our lives. So, and you're one of the best of the best. Tell our listeners in Robin's Nest, what do detection dogs do? So the first thing, well, so Cody, she's trained to detect the presence of explosives and firearms. So that's the first thing that people think about when they think about a police dog or a canine for detection. And obviously narcotics. That's probably the next most popular. And that's a lot of times that's what folks see with the police departments is the narcotics detection dogs. And then there's so many other facets. We just trained up some dogs for Department of Juvenile Justice in Virginia for contraband and their dogs are trained for cell phone detection, electronic storage,

so like thumb drives and things like that. And then they're also trained for Suboxone, which is a, it's a sublingual narcotics that you can take that the inmates are figuring out how to get that smuggled into the jails. So there's so many different fads. There's bed bug detection dogs now. There's dogs that are trained for rodent detection. In the Falkland Islands, they have a big contract there

where they'll bring little Shiba Inus onto ships, cargo ships coming in, and they will search the ships for presence of rodents. And then if they'd have rodents on the ship, they don't let those ships dock because in the Falkland Islands, they're so reliant on their agricultural industry and they don't want any disruption in that. So there's so many different facets. Like I'm sure people have been through the airports and have seen the dogs from the TSA going to the airports. And what they don't realize is they're not always looking for explosives or narcotics. They're looking for agricultural products that are banned from being entered, like certain types of fruits, certain types of plants, invasive plant species and things like that, that those dogs are trained to find inside of people's bags, that they might not be doing that

for nefarious reasons, that they just don't know any better. So the Customs and Border Patrol folks have those types of dogs. And there's conservation dogs that are trained to find species of animals that may be endangered, and they'll go out and help try to find those animals and things. So there's so many different facets of detection work. And obviously you had your search and rescue dogs, this phenomenal dogs. I mean, I think we take those for granted. I mean, going all the way back to 9-11, what those dogs and what those dogs did during 9-11 is just so, so incredible. But the dog's olfactory capability is just, I don't even think we scratched the surface really of what those dogs are capable of doing. You know, even when we did that COVID detection program,

it was a trial run and I was like, there's no way a dog can detect the presence of COVID in somebody's body. But the dogs proved me wrong. And so I think we've just really scratched the surface of what these dogs are capable of doing. I know the military and the government have tried to replicate it with robots and all those things.

And they spent hundreds of millions of dollars and they found out at the end of it that the dog is the best thing for it right now. So I don't, I don't really don't think we deserve these guys, Robin. I mean, they're, they're, they're so incredible on so many different levels, you know, I mean, the stuff they do for us is just amazing. Absolutely. The stuff they do for us out of unconditional love. Unconditional love. Unconditional love. And I read that it's, their nose detection ability is like 200,000 times more than a human. So we can't even understand what that means.

You can't even fathom it. You can't even fathom it. You know, the way I explain to people who are new to canine, especially when I'm teaching a new class, it's like if we walk into a room and we smell somebody baking a cake, right? Like, oh, somebody's making a cake. The dog walks into the same room and they smell all the different ingredients that go into that cake. You know, and it's just, it's incredible. You know, and I see, especially in the narcotic side, a lot of people get very, very creative with hiding narcotics on us and they think, oh, they're not going to find it. Well, no, I'm not going to find it, but I guarantee you my

four-legged partner is going to find it. No matter what you try to do, no matter how many times you try to seal this, no matter what you try to do, the dogs are going to find it. No matter what you try to do, no matter how many times you try to seal this, no matter what you try to do, the dogs are going to find it. It's incredible the stuff that I've seen these dogs. Even Cody, she located a firearm on a kid trying to come into the public school as he was walking. And it was a gun inside his pocket that he was able to get through the metal detector, but it didn't get past Cody. And she found a loaded pistol mag in a bathroom at another another school. And we're talking elementary and middle schools. Is this happening? So we have seen we have seen some some into the middle schools.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you heard the school shooting here in Newport News, which is the adjacent city to where we work, where they had a six year old that brought the gun in and ended up shooting his teacher. So it's a crazy time, but the dogs have been a phenomenal deterrence in the city of Hampton. And since our presence in the schools, they have had zero firearms-related incidences in the schools and a drastic, drastic decrease in the introduction of narcotics into the schools just by having the dogs there. And, you know, it's been we have, you know, unfortunately, we have found narcotics in the schools. But that's why we're there. We're there to keep it out. You know, we're there to keep it out of the school so that the kids can focus on what they're there for, which is to learn. You know, and it's it's a crazy time.

I never thought I'd be bringing canines into schools to do those sorts of things. But, you know, that's what these dogs are built for. These dogs are built for that. And to see what they're able to do those sorts of things. But, you know, that's what these dogs are built for. These dogs are built for that. And to see what they're able to do, you know, we even have a few contracts with some local drug rehab clinics where we bring the narcotics dogs in periodically just to search the residents there for narcotics. And the level of ingenuity that these people come up with to hide their drugs, I wish they would also apply that same ingenuity and drive into other parts of their lives. But again, like everybody thinks they can fool the dog. And I'm like, no, my dog's not wrong.

So it's pretty incredible to see what they're able to do. I love that. James, you do so much work and we're running out of our time. I could just talk with you all day long, but I wanted to ask you one very quick question. You know, a lot of these groups you're working with, they're nonprofits and they depend on money. What, if you had to choose one nonprofit that you work with that besides American Humane, I know we're- Oh, good one. You see, you set me up there because you know I was going to say you guys, come on. No, I know you love us, but what one that you work with that has really done a lot for your line of work, detection dogs and the like

for the lives of, you know, Cody and, you know, and Dexter and all. Tell us, was there one organization? My next favorite group, and I'll have to give them a shout out, is Protection for Paws. And what that group does is they provide medical kits and Narcan kits for working dogs. And if it weren't for Protection for Paws, I would have lost my narcotics partner, Lucy. I'm not sure if you were aware. It was a couple of weeks ago. She was exposed to fentanyl during one of our narcotics sweeps, and she ended up crashing. And if I didn't have that Narcan kit available to me that was donated to us through that organization, she would not have made it to the emergency vet.

So just a little bit of background on that. So we came in to do the narcotics suite and she's an amazing dog, almost as awesome as Cody is. Cody's still my favorite, but we won't tell Lucy that. But she came in and she she drew me to a bag and usually I won't let them go into a bag for that very reason. But she was so fast, she stuck her nose in the bag and came out and alerted. Um, and it ended up being a pure fentanyl inside of a container inside the bag. And, um, you know, we finished the sweep and then I noticed that she was not acting her normal self. And, uh, then I noticed that pupils were dilated. And then I was like, Oh God, like she's been exposed. Um, and it

didn't take very much at all. And she started crashing very, very quickly. And the Narcan, the Narcan saved her life. I administered the Narcan. They use the same Narcan, the nasal, um, Narcan that, that we do as humans. Um, and I administered the Narcan, um, and then rushed her the rest of the way to the emergency vet. And they did their magic on it from there. But if I hadn't a Narcan or when I did, um, but the problem with the Narcan is that we as handlers, because we, we aren't, we aren't first responders, you know, we, it's very hard for us to get ahold of that stuff. And here in Virginia, I know they passed a law that you don't have to have a prescription anymore, but in the state of Virginia and many other States, they will not allow us to purchase Narcan unless we have a

documented opioid problem. Now, obviously, I don't have a documented opioid problem. You know, I'm out there working to prevent these people from getting these things. And we have a huge problem being able to access Narcan for our handlers. James, today, American Humane is going to help. Today, American Humane is going to issue a grant. We're going to issue a grant to Protection for Paws in Cody and Lucy's honor. So today we'll be issuing a really nice grant to help add more Narcon into canine handlers work in your honor, Lucy's honor and Cody's honor. That is amazing. That is me. And those ladies, and they do it so selflessly, you know, and, uh, I, I, the lady that donated to them, they, she donated in honor of her dad,

who was a Norfolk police detective. And, um, she's a local business owner here. And she, she's the one that set me up with that group. And those ladies, they, they are just so amazing. And all they care about is keeping these dogs safe. And I gave a little shout out on Facebook to Patty is her name for doing. I was like, Hey, I just wanted to say thanks to Patty because there's just so much negativity out there these days. And I want to put something positive, especially on Facebook. Facebook can sometimes be the devil. So I posted a little story out there and then the local news picked it up and did a story on Patty and protection for paws and the work that they're doing. And that, you know, they had a little feel good story about Lucy getting to meet Patty for the first time and giving her hugs.

Lucy's a big hugger, kind of like Cody is. But yeah, it was a great story. But yeah, they do such great, amazing work. And it's incredible to see groups like that see the need and be able to step in and help. Otherwise, you know, Lucy wouldn't be here today. And so many other dogs they've saved. They'll donate body armor for dogs. They'll donate medical kits for dogs. And it's incredible work, incredible work that they're doing. Well, we're grateful for them and we're grateful for you.

And we're glad Lucy's okay. And James, again, thank you so much for joining us in Robin's Nest today. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything. And you're truly one of America's heroes, as is Cody. And we're all jealous that she got her photo taken in Taylor Swift's dressing room for the heiress tour. James, thank you again. Be safe and stay well. Thanks so much. Thanks for having us.