SALT LAKE CITY — The members of the Weber County's Sheriff's Office said an emotional goodbye to a beloved K9 known as the 'porn sniffing dog' for his ability to uncover hidden evidence in many child exploitation cases.
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URL died on Dec. 30, just shy of his eighth birthday. He had retired in January 2022.
URL worked with the Utah ICAC Task Force in 2016 and was deployed on over 200 search warrants, most for child sex crimes. According to the Utah Attorney General's Office, URL had a success rate of nearly 22% in which he was able to find critical digital evidence that would have been overlooked by agents.
The office said URL once found a USB drive disguised as a key on keyring, and discovered a micro-SD card in a closed jar that had been hidden in pencil box inside on a large cedar chest.
URL was born on Feb. 14, 2015 and spent time in a foster home and different animal shelters because he was considered to be untrainable, loud and not good on a leash. He was then trained in electronic storage canine detection in Indiana before his handler, Det. Cam Hartman, picked up URL and brought him to Utah in 2016.
When not on cases for the task force, Hartman said URL provided emotional support to officers investigating stressful child exploitation cases, as well as the children in the homes at the time warrants were served.
"URL my heart is broken and still filled with so many memories and emotions," wrote Hartman. "I am so lucky to have been able to get to know you and serve the citizens of Utah and its surrounding states with you.
"I don’t take any of the time you gave me for granted. It’s been an unbelievable honor to have been the largest part of your unstable life. I will miss you terribly until I get to see you again."
