Johannesburg - Pupils, parents and teachers at an Ekurhuleni school might mistake the new addition to the staff for a pet.
But Wendy would prefer not to be touched, cuddled or fed by anyone except her handler.
The one-and-a-half-year-old German shepherd which Edenvale
High School acquired from the Braveheart Guard and Narcotic Dog Academy, would rather get straight into the hard work of ridding the premises of drugs and controlling unwanted crowds.
The school’s principal, Dr Larry Harmer, told The Saturday Star this week that Wendy has been commissioned for those exact purposes despite initial confusion from those at Edenvale High.
“I presented her as a staff member because you don’t pat or feed a staff member,” insisted Harmer.
“It’s a whole paradigm shift, she
is not a pet as we know it, this is a dog which is going to work,” he insisted.
Harmer explained that the canine, who has been at the high school for about two weeks, is only affectionate with her handler, security guard at the school Velley Hlongo who guides her as she conducts surprise classroom visits in the hunt for
drugs.
He also sees to her needs and ensures that pupils and teachers abide by the stern “no touching” rule.
The pair share a special bond as Hlongo spent nearly five weeks with Wendy as he underwent intensive training on how to care for her and help her undertake her roles at the school.
When she is not performing her anti-narcotic and crowd-controlling duties, she spends her downtime chewing on her plastic toy and spending time with him only.
“She is one of my closest friends, we miss each other when we are apart over the weekend,” said Hlongo.
Wendy became part of the Edenvale High School staff following a robbery at the premises earlier this year which resulted in a bloody shoot-out as armed robbers made off with R8000 of the school’s money.
“When we had the robbery in February, security at the school was upgraded and I thought we could kill two birds with one stone by bringing in a guard and narcotics dog.”
Wendy might be a guard dog but she is not trained to bite anyone.
“She doesn’t offer any protection services in the sense that if someone is attacked, she is commanded to bite the person or take them down,” explained Harmer.
Instead, her primary duty is to patrol classrooms in search of drugs including dagga, heroin and cocaine.
Together with Hlongo, who adjusts her mindset by simply putting on her leather “working collar” and removing her chain “walking collar”, Wendy is ready to sniff pupilss as well as their school blazers and bags for
any drug paraphernalia.
Harmer said this is done almost twice daily as the school constantly reminds its pupils of its strong anti-drug stance.
He said Wendy’s nose is so attuned to drugs that she recently left an innocent Grade 8 youngster close to tears as she mistook the teenager’s school bag made of hemp for dagga.
“That was quite interesting because there was no THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, one of at least 113 cannabinoids identified in cannabis) linked to it.”
Another reason for Harmer’s decision to recruit Wendy was that
the police were either too busy to conduct regular drug patrols or private services were too expensive for Edenvale High School to use as often as it would like.
He said the police’s unavailability was exacerbated by the school’s proximity to OR Tambo International Airport, which meant that the law enforcement authority’s dogs were prioritised for crime prevention purposes at the premises.
Despite Edenvale High’s strong stance on narcotics, Harmer insisted that the educational institution did not have a drug problem and that Wendy was simply used as a deterrent against drugs.
He added that although he is not naive enough to believe that
drugs were never brought onto the premises, pupils had never been found with narcotics during police raids throughout his nearly two decades at the school.
“We are trying to be more proactive than reactive.”
Apart from sniffing out narcotics, Wendy is also used for crowd control.
“If there is a fight at the school, which usually draws a crowd, Velley gives a command for Wendy to give a loud bark which disperses the crowd,” said Harmer.
The principal said while teachers at Edenvale High had fallen in love with Wendy immediately, pupils had been more apprehensive of her presence as they had feared that she might bite them.
But as she settled into the school, they had quickly learnt that as long as they toed the anti-drug line, they had nothing to fear.
As Edenvale High’s youngsters have become accustomed to Wendy, many of their parents are already delighted about her new role at the school.
“Since Wendy’s arrival was announced, many parents have said they would like to add R100 to their school fees to offset vet bills, dog food and Wendy’s other needs.”