‘Seek dope’: Goose the dog is on the hunt for contraband at Hennepin County jail

When Goose is working, he wants one thing — his ball.

To get his ball, which is tucked into the pocket of K-9 handler Travis Thorson’s cargo pants, Goose has to do one job: “Seek dope.”

The 2-year-old Labrador retriever has worked as the Hennepin County jail’s first drug dog for about a year. Already, Goose has sniffed out plenty of contraband, proving he’s a valuable addition to the effort to keep dangerous narcotics out of the jail.

“He’s 100 percent ball-driven,” Thorson explained of Goose’s training on a recent December morning. Goose, Thorson and Hunter Coil, the jail’s intelligence officer, were about to search a holding cell, where a dozen inmates who had not yet made their initial court appearance were being held.

After the prisoners had been moved out of the room, Thorson gave the command: “Goose, seek dope.”

Without hesitation, he sprang into action. Goose flew around the room like a canine whirlwind, nosing into beds, blankets, books and personal items.

Within seconds, he proudly sat down; Goose had found something. In this instance, it wasn’t contraband, but a cotton ball that had been adjacent to some drugs, which Coil and Thorson use to keep Goose’s detection skills sharp.

Then out came his ball. Goose was darting around the room again, overjoyed.

Working with Goose is an unexpected but welcome assignment for Thorson, who has always loved dogs.

“I told myself, I’m done with dogs, because I didn’t want to deal with the heartache,” he said. “But then the opportunity came up, it was something new, and I love it. I never thought it would be a possibility [to work with a dog] inside the jail.”

Sheriff Dawanna Witt said having a drug-sniffing dog working full time at the Hennepin County jail was the next logical step in the battle against narcotics and addiction at the 800-bed facility. She noted that assigning a dog to a detention deputy, rather than an officer out on patrol who might occasionally visit the jail, emphasized the importance of the difficult task jail officers face.

“Goose is a big morale booster,” Witt said. She plans to add another police dog later this year, because Goose can only cover so much ground each day.

Societal problems like drug addiction are orders of magnitude worse in corrections facilities, Witt says. Public safety officials estimate about half of prisoners are struggling with some type of substance abuse disorder.

In recent years, the jail in downtown Minneapolis has had several drug-related deaths. Those fatalities played a role in a recent state order to reduce the number of prisoners housed at the jail.

Last year, jail staff used Narcan, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, 18 times. That’s down from 24 times in 2023, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The goal is to keep the facility 100% drug-free, but Witt acknowledges that is an ambitious and likely impossible objective.

“We are seeing drugs get into our facilities,” Witt said. “Our job here is to make sure that we are keeping the people in our care safe.”

The jail had a thorough screening process for new prisoners long before Goose joined the staff. During intake, inmates are searched and change into jail-issued uniforms.

Anything suspicious can lead to a strip search. Inmates also undergo a body scan, and anyone with something suspect inside them is sent to HCMC for a medical evaluation.

Despite these measures, drugs still get inside the jail, which occupies the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility and part of Minneapolis City Hall, just across the street.

Goose, handler Thorson, and Coil, the jail intelligence officer, focus a lot of their time searching holding cells that house groups of new prisoners who have not yet been to court. Coil says these inmates are the most likely to have contraband because they haven’t been inside the facility long.

The team also regularly searches the longer-term housing units, where inmates awaiting trial are held, but those searches are typically driven by tips Coil receives from inmates.

“When they see the dog, the first thing inmates say is, ‘I need to use the bathroom,’” Coil said, noting that before any targeted search, they shut off the water. “They just gave themselves away. They want to flush whatever they have.”

One of the more creative ways drugs get into the jail is through mail to inmates. People mix substances like cocaine, methamphetamine or opioids with a liquid, spray it on thick cardstock paper and allow it to dry. If the drug soaked paper makes it to an inmate, they can then cut it up and sell it.

A sheet of drug-soaked paper could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars inside the jail or a corrections facility.

These drug-soaked papers could be a child’s drawing or a birthday card, making them hard for jail staff to detect. But not for Goose, who can easily sniff it out.

Preventing drugs from getting into the jail only goes so far toward addressing inmates’ struggles with substance abuse. Prisoners may experience life-threatening withdrawal symptoms while incarcerated or overdose upon release because their tolerance is lower.

To help inmates battling addiction, the jail used a state grant to launch an opioid use care and withdrawal management program in 2019. Every new inmate meets with a nurse who asks about their history of drug and alcohol use, said Elise Woodward, a nurse practitioner and the associate medical director of the jail’s substance abuse treatment program.

Prisoners at risk of severe withdrawal symptoms and those ready to kick their habit are eligible for prescription drugs like buprenorphine, which affects opioid receptors in the brain to help manage cravings and withdrawal symptoms. The medication doesn’t get people high, but it can help drug users maintain a certain level of tolerance, so if they relapse after being released from custody, they’re less likely to overdose.

Orders by jail medical staff for opioid withdrawal management climbed 230% between 2021 and 2023, the latest year data is available. Some inmates enter the program multiple times, and the number of individuals receiving treatment has risen 152% over that time period.

“Most patients taking buprenorphine live longer, happier lives. They want to reconnect with their families, to get housing,” Woodward said. “This is an evidence-based way to help people.”