ORANGE — Getting on and off a plane might sound like an odd piece of police training, but it can make quite a difference when you’re a dog.

On Monday morning, K-9s and their handlers gathered at the Orange Municipal Airport for the second day of a week-long training seminar hosted by the Northeast Houndsmen, a North Quabbin-based nonprofit dedicated to training police dogs, bringing canines to local departments and community outreach.

Part of the day’s training involved bringing the dogs into a Cessna 172 plane and taxiing it around the runway to help the dogs acclimate to the sights, sounds and feeling of being on an aircraft. Other training throughout the week included partnering with the Northfield Dive Team on Sunday for underwater tracking, while Tuesday evening saw the Orange Fire Department set a prop car on fire and then have dogs track people through the smoke and noise as firefighters extinguished the blaze.

While it’s possible some of these dogs will never have to get on a plane, search for criminals running from an arson scene or find someone submerged underwater, it’s an opportunity to prepare the dogs and their handlers for the scenario if it ever comes up.

All of this work crammed into a week is an opportunity to keep the dogs sharp, as well as their handlers, according to Northeast Houndsmen President Ray Jackson, who has been working with dogs for decades. The Northeast Houndsmen specialize in police bloodhounds, but they are more than capable when it comes to training German shepherds as well.

“With bloodhounds, it’s not so much training them, it’s more training the handler to follow the trail,” Jackson said. “You want the hound to indicate you’re near the perpetrator. … It’s up to the handler to read it correctly.”

“We bring it all together,” added Bill Chapman, a Templeton police officer and one of the Northeast Houndsmen’s trainers, joking that Jackson is the region’s “father of all hounds.” “We try to take it to new levels.”

Departments from around the Northeast joined the Houndsmen, including Greenfield, Erving and Orange locally. Other representatives included some from the New York City Police Department, Maine State Police, New Jersey State Park Police, Dudley Police Department, New Jersey’s Cape May Police Department and Rhode Island’s Pawtucket Police Department, among others.

While handlers and their dogs always need to stay on top of training to be certified, seminars, like those offered by the Northeast Houndsmen, can also provide an opportunity to get up to speed with new technologies and searching methods. A major example Jackson highlighted is the introduction of new aerial search methods, meaning the days of relying on only a police helicopter or plane are gone.

“It’s come a long way,” Jackson said. “We’ve got to train with drones now.”

The abilities of the dogs, though, remain the same. Trainer Clay Rushford noted bloodhounds can track scents for miles before they need to switch off with another dog in a process that is similar to a track team passing batons, except the baton in this case is the “scent article.”

“If the conditions are optimal,” Rushford said, “you can probably go 3 miles.”

Jackson added that most bloodhounds can pick up trails that are a “couple days old” with some training, while the best of the best can pick up even older trails. Pointing to the NYPD and their dogs, he said dogs’ ability to distinguish scents is also unmatched.

“Can you imagine all the sights and smells walking through the Big Apple?” he said. “They can do it. Like I said, it’s up to the handler to read it correctly.”

Greenfield K-9 Officer Marcus Johansson was on hand Monday to participate in training with Ellie-May, the bloodhound the department acquired in August 2023. Ellie-May was sworn in last year and serves as what is thought to be one of two police bloodhounds in Franklin County, with the other being Erving’s bloodhound, Ziva, handled by K-9 Officer Laura Gordon.

Johansson said this is the second time he and Ellie-May attended the Northeast Houndsmen training and the duo have had success when working in the field in Greenfield. Ellie-May is not the only four-legged member of the Greenfield Police Department, as K-9 Niko, a German shepherd, is also on the roster.

“It makes our K-9 unit a multi-tool,” Johansson said of having a bloodhound. “It broadens our horizons and the trails we can do.”

Ellie-May joined the Greenfield Police Department through a donation by a family in Maine, which was facilitated by the Northeast Houndsmen. Alongside trainings, helping police departments around the region acquire K-9s is another key mission for the organization.

Community involvement is another goal for the nonprofit and Monday’s session was no different, as the training also offered an opportunity for students from around the region to get hands-on experience.

Students from Franklin County Technical School’s veterinary program were invited by Gordon to attend the training and perform some basic vital checks on the dogs before and after their training. Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School ROTC students were also on hand.

Veterinary and animal science instructor Kimberly Barry said the kids got to take the dogs’ heart and respiratory rates, which allowed the students to discuss the athleticism of working dogs, as well as the differences between bloodhounds and German shepherds. As an added bonus, students also got to follow some of the dogs on their trails and posed as missing people for the dogs to find.

“Being able to work with K-9s from all over the Northeast is a huge honor and it is not very often that the general public, never mind high school students, get the opportunity to work so closely with K-9s and their handlers. Not only does it give them a better insight into what these dogs do for work, it also creates a connection between law enforcement and the students,” Barry said. “We have some students who may be interested in pursuing a career with working K-9s in some aspect, so being able to see them up close and personal and talk to their handlers could be instrumental in pursuing such a career.”

For more information about the Northeast Houndsmen, visit their website at northeasthoundsmen.com or their Facebook page at facebook.com/northeasthoundsmen.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.