Connecticut state police in the US have a new weapon in the war on child porn - a golden Labrador trained to track down computer hardware.
The dog, named Thoreau, went on a 22-week course during which he was taught to sniff out hidden thumb drives, hard drives and other computer gadgets on which illicit images are often stored, the Providence Journal reports.
According to the report, child pornographers have been known to hide their hard drives in ceilings or even radios, but try as they might, Thoreau's nose knows where to find them.
"If there's a memory card, he'll sniff it out," Detective Adam Houston, Thoreau's handler, said before demonstrating the dog's ability to reporters.
Thoreau sniffed through a desk, finding a hard drive in a ziplocked bag and a thumb drive.
In exchange he got a square meal.
"This is how he eats every day," Houston said.
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