Man arrested after Orem police dog finds drugs in bag of Funyuns

OREM — An Orem man was arrested Friday after a police dog sniffed out his snack.

An officer pulled over the 32-year-old man when he failed to stop at an intersection where the lights were out due to a blown transformer, police said.

Orem Police Cpl. Trent Colledge responded with police dog Rudy, who zeroed in on a bag of Funyuns in the car. Inside were a few balloons of heroin and a bindle of methamphetamine, police said.

Colledge, who has worked with Rudy for almost two years, said the handlers of the department's four Belgian Malinois are constantly training to keep the drug-sniffing dogs' skills sharp.

Drug dealers try an array of substances to try to hide the scent of the narcotics — axle grease has been a popular choice recently, especially with large amounts of heroin and methamphetamine — but their strategy doesn't succeed. "It never does," Colledge said.

He said the officers get newly certified each year and specifically train the dogs to find drugs hidden in food, even in their own dog food.

"When (people) walk into a pizza place, we just smell pizza," Colledge said. "(The dogs) can smell the bread and the sauce and each individual ingredient."

On the job, "they smell everything, and they're able to differentiate between what's narcotics and what's not," he said.

Orem police say the dogs have taken more than $250,000 in illicit drugs off the city's streets in the past seven years.

In this case, Colledge said he believes the man stashed the drugs in the bag as he was pulled over. Police said they also found a meth pipe between the front seats of the car.

The man was booked into the Utah County Jail.

e-mail: pkoepp@desnews.com