NEWPORT BEACH — The embossed paw-print design above the doorbell at Larry Harris’ house is the first tip-off that he is unquestionably a dog person.
The photos and paintings of dogs and dog-related awards on nearly every wall in the house are a clue to Harris’ longtime volunteer career as a bloodhound trainer for law enforcement.
But about three weeks ago, after 21 years on a job that remains controversial, Harris put away the harness and leash for good when his dog Trace died.
Trace was Harris’ fifth — and final — bloodhound. He’s had a varied career — a veteran of the Air Force, engineer for McDonnell Douglas, Newport Beach reserve police officer — but his work with bloodhounds has been a constant since he got his first dog in 1986, when he was a volunteer reserve deputy with the O.C. Sheriff’s Department.
He had grown up around the hunting dogs his father and grandfather kept but didn’t know much about bloodhounds.
When his field sergeant asked if he wanted to help develop a bloodhound program, Harris said, “I just thought it’d be kind of neat. With a bloodhound you get to find lost children, senile adults and chase bad guys all year round. With a hunting dog you only get to do it a few times a year.”
In his years as a volunteer dog handler with the Sheriff’s Department and the Irvine Police Department, Harris worked as far away as Susanville, which is north of Sacramento and Yosemite; and he had cases as close as his own street, where he and his dog helped look for two neighbors with Alzheimer’s disease who wandered from home on different occasions.
His dogs worked the 1993 Laguna Beach fire. Once, they trailed a robbery suspect about 10 miles, from a bank in Palm Desert to a house in Indio. A picture on Harris’ wall shows Sable and Duchess, Harris’ first and second working dogs, next to two trash bags of children’s body parts they’d sniffed out — evidence in a case that was gruesome but was solved in part because of the dogs.
One of Harris’ favorite cases was in Santa Ana, where a 3-year-old girl was snatched while playing in front of a laundry facility where her aunt was doing the wash.
Harris had Sable smell one of the girl’s sweaters. The dog led him to the very back of an apartment complex, right to the door. Then police took over.
