The Weber County Sheriff’s Office’s “porn-sniffing” canine passed away Dec. 30 at the age of seven following years spent sniffing out child predators, according to a social media post from the dog’s task force.
URL was the fourth dog in the country to be certified as an Electronic Storage Detection Canine (ESDK9), according to KSL. He worked with his trainer, Detective Cameron Hartman, to track down alleged sex offenders in Utah who kept child-exploitative or child-abusive materials on their electronic devices.
“You brought so much joy to the children who were home during search warrants, the countless kids of all ages as I got to show you off at dozens of public schools, colleges, public demonstrations, and church groups,” Hartman wrote on the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force’s Facebook account.
“Thank you, ‘URL,’ for trusting me, for working so hard, for loving me unconditionally, and for being part of my family,” he continued.
URL was not specially bred to work as a police dog, according to a Facebook post from the Weber County Sheriff’s Office. In the first part of his life URL moved between dog pounds, earning a reputation as “untrainable” as a result of his behavior. The Central Indiana Labrador Rescue and Adoption (CILRA) later intervened to make sure URL found his way to an appropriate home.
The Weber County Sheriff’s Office and the Weber Morgan Narcotics Strike Force adopted and trained URL to become an ESDK9, according to the Facebook post. URL worked with Hartman to carry out over 2,000 search warrants, obtaining digital storage devices that led to the arrest and prosecution of numerous offenders.
URL once found a USB drive disguised as a key on a full keyring, according to the Facebook post. He also found cellphone parts concealed in a wall behind a toilet at Weber County Jail.
The dog’s successful career earned him plenty of media attention. URL appeared on CNN, and he had a cameo on the reality TV show, “Cops,” in 2017. The Sheriff’s Office retired URL in January 2022, and the dog spent his last months with Hartman, the Facebook post read.