FILE PHOTO Sayreville Detective Joseph Wolski and Cody visit Sayreville’s Arleth Elementary School in February 2005 when the black Labrador was still working with the police. SAYREVILLE — For almost 13 years, Detective Joe Wolski had a four-legged partner on the police force.
Cody, a black Labrador who could detect drugs, was that partner until the pooch retired in May 2007. He died this summer at the age of 14.
Cody started at the Sayreville Police Department in December 1994. He and Wolski embarked on a training program in Union County that took 10 weeks.
“We had a time when we needed a bomb dog,” Wolski said. “The Union County Sheriff ‘s Department said that they could provide the dog and could provide the training. At the time, I was the only one who could [work with Cody]. So, I went through the training.”
The 10-week training program included teaching Cody to detect marijuana, cocaine, crack, heroin and methamphetamines. Later on, Cody was taught to detect Ecstasy, when that drug became popular in the late 1990s.
“His reward would be a rolled-up towel,” Wolski said. “We’d line a towel with drugs and the scent of drugs would go on the towel.”
After this, the officers started hiding dry drugs, without the towel. Cody would find the drugs and anxiously await his reward of a rolled-up towel. When Cody would find the drugs, he would scratch at them. This was his way of indicating that he found narcotics.
“He thinks he’s looking for a towel,” Wolski said. “He wants to play — you have to find one that wants to play. This develops their drive.”
Wolski said that a good drug-detection dog is a playful one. Finding a dog that likes to tug on rolled-up towels is also important, he said. Some dogs like to play with tennis balls, but that would not help a drug-detection dog because it is easier to train them with towels.
For Cody, life was all about having fun.
“Hunting dogs want to hunt and narcotics dogs want to find drugs,” Wolski said.
Cody and Wolski did about 30 or 40 jobs a year, adding up to hundreds over the course of their time together.
Cody’s first job was a notable one, working with police who were executing a search warrant at a house.
“He had to search three different floors,” Wolski said. “There were a lot of different drugs involved at the time. We only had a warrant for one person, but there were other people in the house, and he ended up finding marijuana, cocaine and heroin. He hit 11 different places and every different place had narcotics. There was a pound of marijuana in the mattress.”
One memorable search came when the state police called the borough unit out to search a tractor-trailer. It was transporting a shipment of flowers from Colombia to Miami and then to New Jersey. Georgia state troopers had stopped the truck, and one of their dogs had smelled something. They then let the truck make its way to New Jersey, where police intercepted it. Cody then made a hit on the rear of the tractor, the same exact spot that the dog in Georgia made a hit. Wolski did not know anything about this other
dog’s hit until afterward.
“They never found anything, as far as I know,” Wolski said. “There was fresh welding in the truck. You tend to believe your dog, but nothing really turned out after it.”
Cody would often do search warrants at residences, locker searches at high schools, and was even a Sayreville Willabee mascot and DARE mascot, advising students to avoid drugs and alcohol.
“We’d do demonstrations for DARE, for the prosecutor’s office,” Wolski said.
In terms of search warrants, Cody was extremely helpful.
“When a dog hits, you know an area to look,” Wolski said.
Last summer, it came time for Cody to retire after almost 13 years.
“He was just too old,” Wolski said. “It was difficult for him to get in and out of the car.”
Then, this summer, after having four seizures in a 24-hour span, Cody died.
“Word just got around [that he was sick] because people knew him,” Wolski said. “A lot of people just knew the dog. He was around for 13 years.”
Throughout the years, Wolski became attached to Cody.
“It would be weird if I didn’t get attached to him,” Wolski said. “It was weird if I didn’t put him in the car in the morning.”
Wolski’s favorite part was just having Cody in the car with him.
“Just having the dog with you, riding around in the car,” Wolski said. “Doing demonstrations and seeing the kids react to him. They loved the dog.”
Wolski has not received an answer yet as to whether another narcotics dog will be brought in to replace Cody, but he anticipates budget concerns may not allow for it.