When a Gwinnett County child with autism went missing in April, tracking dog Sika sprang into action. The 3-year-old Hanoverian hound quickly found the boy in a roadside ditch and was rewarded with a pack of tuna.
On Wednesday, Sika received a proper plaque for her K-9 work. Both she and Sanford, a 1-year-old black Labrador, were honored alongside eight other law enforcement units and officers at a Gwinnett District Attorney’s Office ceremony.
“These officers, deputies, investigators, neighborhood police and all law enforcement officers gave outstanding service in the line of duty,” said District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson. “We want to ensure that the public knows who they are and make sure that they are appreciated.”
That includes the four-legged helpers.
Sika is a Gwinnett police tracking dog who searches for missing civilians. She found five missing people this year, including a 60-year-old man who got lost in the woods in Duluth in October and the child with autism who wandered away from home in April.
Sika and her handler, Sgt. Brandon Townley, were asked to assist after authorities could not locate the boy for over an hour. He placed Sika in the area where the child was last seen, and the hound quickly found the child’s shoe. Sika then tracked the child’s scent through several front yards and over to the next street, where she started barking.
“I knew we were close because she gets really excited and animated, and there he was in a ditch off the side of the road,” Townley said.
When he saw Sika, the boy slowly came out to pet her. Townley rewarded Sika with a hard-earned tuna pack, which she eagerly gobbled up.
“We spend more time with these dogs than with our family,” he said. “They’re like an extension of us.”
Townley has worked with K-9s since 2013, first partnering with dogs trained to bite and hold suspects. But in recent years, Gwinnett police — which has 10 canine teams trained to detect and apprehend people, property and drugs — started exploring the need for mild-tempered dogs to search for citizens with mental health conditions, autism or dementia.
Sika, whom Townley described as a social “little butterfly,” joined the department in 2022, and became one of the county’s first non-bite tracking dogs.
“Given her expert ability in tracking and phenomenal sense of smell, she’s been a wonderful alternative to the Gwinnett County Police Department in helping track missing individuals,” said Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Sabrina Nizam.
Sanford, another honoree, is a therapy dog for the Sugar Hill Marshal’s Office. The lab and his handler, Michael Parker, work with local schools and students dealing with mental health challenges.
After a North Gwinnett Middle School seventh grader died by suicide, Parker and his K-9 were invited to an assembly to help students grieving the loss.
“Before the assembly began, I told Sanford ‘Go say hi’ which is one of his commands. So he went through a crowd of 20, 30, 40 kids and located this girl and just fell into her lap,” he said.
The school counselor later told Parker that the girl Sanford had singled out and comforted was a close friend of the student who died.
“When we experience emotions, our bodies give off pheromones that he can smell and know where he is needed. And that just blew me away,” he said.
Parker joined the marshal’s office in 2021. Since then, he and Sanford have attended school events, hosted leadership and life skills workshops and patrolled Sugar Hill, where they frequently run into people who find comfort through Sanford.
“We’ll have people come up to us in the street and say, ‘Hey can I pet your dog?’ And... just start bawling and crying and unloading all their problems and issues to him. And then they’ll wipe their tears away and say, ‘Thank you, I needed that so much,’” he said.
