By Aaron Gifford   Thursday, August 05, 2004 -  staff writer
Cyclone, the first police dog with the Madison County Sheriff's Office, died Monday. She was 14.  In her eight-year career with the sheriff's office, Cyclone was involved in high-level sting operations that led to the arrests of 16 people and the confiscation of 3 pounds of cocaine, 12 vehicles, 10 guns and $56,220 in cash. Those findings netted the department enough money to replace outdated .357-caliber Magnums with Glock .45-caliber pistols, said her handler and owner, Lt. Matthew Episcopo.  All told, the black Labrador retriever, trained to sniff out drugs, conducted more than 100 narcotics searches, including several at the 1994 Woodstock music festival Downstate and Woodstock '99 in Rome. Cyclone was born a bird dog, but breeders steered her toward another career when she refused to release the duck from her mouth on hunts. "It was one of those things that if you're not good at one thing, you're good at another," Episcopo said. "She was a great narcotics dog."  Cyclone was trained by Sgts. Jeff Gates and Earl Smith of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office. She arrived in Madison County in 1992. A canine unit was not funded in the budget, so Episcopo and some other deputies raised the money on their own. Episcopo said Cyclone, at 60 pounds, was much smaller than the other dogs that had been trained at the time. But she was much more athletic. She excelled in narcotics searches and impressed trainers with her ability to jump off the ground and crawl under small openings. In 23 years as canine training specialist, Gates tested more than 9,000 dogs and trained almost 400. Cyclone, he said, ranked among the best. "She would go on countertops. She'd go below floors. Her confidence level was always constant. Every environment was fair game to her," Gates said.  And when the dog closed in on what she was searching for, "she would whirl around in circles," Episcopo said, like a cyclone. He practiced with Cyclone by applying a fake narcotic scent on her toys and playing catch in a field, where she would have to ignore the scents of plants, animals and other items to concentrate on the toy. Her favorite toy was a German-made product called Kong, Episcopo said. The beehive-shaped device tumbled end over end and made a hopping motion, stimulating the dog's predatory instincts.
"They're supposed to be indestructible," he said. "She had one chewed to 1 square inch of rubber. It was almost like her security blanket."
At work, she turned up contraband in jail cells and found drugs in pulled-over vehicles, post offices and school lockers. She boarded suspicious boats on Lake Ontario and was regularly called to help police agencies in other counties, the lieutenant said. Cyclone participated in more than 150 canine demonstrations during her career. Children often sent the dog thank-you letters. Despite her impressive professional resume, Cyclone was heralded for her personality, which Episcopo described as "very, very sweet." She patrolled the county campus in Wampsville regularly, stopping in offices to visit her favorite employees and department heads. Episcopo spent much of his time outside of work bringing the dog to nursing homes, where Cyclone could be found licking the faces of new friends or lying on her back for a belly rub.
"She loved attention, soaked it up like a sponge," he said. "A very, very sweet dog. There isn't anyone who didn't love her as soon as they met her." Cyclone retired in January 2000 and settled into an easygoing life at Episcopo's home. The smooth, loyal Lab slowed down as old age set in. Her hearing deteriorated and her eyes were glazed over, but, as recently as two weeks ago, she pranced and danced like a cyclone when Episcopo demonstrated her skills to a friend by hiding her favorite toy.
"You would have thought she was 5 years old again," he said.
 

submitted by: Jim Cortina, Dir. CPWDA