Berkeleyan

Nosing around campus is their job

17 March 2004

Peg Skorpinski photo

UC Police Department Officer Hans Williams spends a lot of time with Morgan, a border collie mix. Rescued from an animal shelter, Morgan, 18 months old, is the second member of UCPD’s bomb-sniffing dog squad.
During work hours, Williams leads Morgan as the dog puts her nose to the ground at numerous sites across campus, including mailrooms, sports venues, and anywhere that anything even slightly controversial is scheduled at Berkeley. At the end of each of her four 10-hour shifts a week, Morgan accompanies her handler home, where she’s treated like one of the family.

Like her canine counterpart on the force —
Sproul, a four-year-old golden retriever — Morgan is “extremely friendly, approachable, and non-aggressive,” says UCPD dog trainer Brenda Flores. Each bowser bears the moniker of a famous campus personality. Sproul’s namesake is former UC President Robert Gordon Sproul, who we’re told also has a hall and a plaza named for him. Morgan was named after renowned architect Julia Morgan, a Berkeley alumna and designer of Hearst Gym (with Bernard Maybeck) and Girton Hall.