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Springville Police Department K-9 Nomi is pictured Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, at Springville High School.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Springville Police Department K-9 Nomi is pictured with her handler, Detective A. Johnson, on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, at Springville High School.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Springville Police Department K-9 Nomi is pictured Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, at Springville High School.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Springville Police Department K-9 Nomi is pictured with her handler, Detective A. Johnson, on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, at Springville High School.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Springville High students may see a friendly face greeting them in the hallways as they return to campus for the 2025-26 school year.

But this newcomer from Kansas isn’t the Red Devils’ latest transfer student. She’s actually a central figure in a new initiative launched by the Springville Police Department to combat vapes in schools.

K-9 Nomi, a 2-year-old black lab acquired by Springville police last spring, is trained to detect marijuana, among other drugs, and is believed to be the first drug-detecting dog to enter a school in Utah — and one of the first in the nation.

Handled by Springville High’s school resource officer, Detective A. Johnson, she was trained to be a friendly, nonthreatening K-9.

“The hope is students will see that we have a dog here, not to scare them necessarily, but to caution them about bringing those things and spreading them around, and be a deterrent,” Johnson said.

Nomi’s new job

The program was started by Springville Police Chief Lance Haight, who said he’s concerned about the growing issue of vapes in school.

According to a 2023 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17% of high school students had used cannabis within the last 30 days, and e-cigarettes are particularly difficult to detect because of their odorless vapor.

Haight said he’s seen K-9 programs that detect THC at one school in Florida and another in Michigan and decided to implement it.

“With new issues, you have to find a new way to address the issue,” Haight said. “It used to be when people were smoking cigarettes or smoking marijuana, any of us could smell it from way down the hall. But now with vapes, essentially odorless to our senses, you might see a puff of smoke, but you’re not going to be able to smell it. That’s why we use dogs; their sense of smell is so much better than ours.”

Springville High Principal Robert Fleming said he was on board not because his school has a higher drug issue than other schools in the state, but because he wants to do whatever he can to give students the help they need.

Last year, the school received a grant from Utah County to place a substance abuse advocate in the school. The advocate is there to help the students get off addictive substances and offer resources. Fleming views Nomi as another recourse to help.

“We want to be proactive, not just reactive,” he said.

Officer Whitney Van Pelt, who handles Springville police’s other K-9, Grimm, said the department has an agreement with the school that states Nomi will not search actual students. Instead, she will sniff lockers and backpacks.

Students who are caught with illegal substances will be sent to the substance abuse advocate at the school or to a youth court.

“It’s really just a remediation process to try and get these kids off of THC,” Van Pelt said. “And typically, if you have a nicotine vape, you’ll probably have a THC vape. Usually they kind of coincide. So hopefully we’ll get the other vapes as well.”

“The urgency in getting marijuana out of the school is, one, it’s illegal, and two, it’s a gateway drug that can lead to further drug use,” Johnson warned.

“So hopefully the dog can eliminate that from the schools, period,” he said. “Because this is where they’re going to have the most interaction with those particular drugs, whether that’s them bringing them or their friends bringing them.”

Highly specialized

Nomi entered the high school on the first day of school Wednesday morning full of energy, jumping at officers and struggling to hold still for a picture.

She may come off as any other fun-loving lab, but the department emphasized that she is not a pet but a work dog that is highly specialized.

Nomi came from CARES Kansas, a nonprofit service dog organization that partners puppies with prison inmates for the first year of the dog’s life, where they are trained in obedience tasks and socialization.

After the prison program ended, Nomi was sent to a foster family for further training, then purchased by Springville police through a sponsor, Nomi Health, in Provo, of which the dog is named.

She was picked up by Johnson in Kansas last spring and began receiving extensive training, first with a 10-week narcotics course, followed by weekly trainings to get her ready for the fall semester.

“Obedience is everything with the dogs, just to make sure that they’re still performing and showing reliability in that particular field, and that never stops,” Johnson said. “So we’ll keep training until she retires.”

A key part of Nomi’s training was scent memorization, where she played with toys exposed to the odor of different drugs, leading to a positive association, so when she’s on the job and given a command, she’s motivated to find the toy.

When a police K-9 completes a command, they need a reward to keep the incentive high. That reward looks different for every dog.

“As a handler, you have to figure out what entices your dog the most,” Van Pelt said.

Haight said he once trained with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and they had a K-9 that preferred a plain, white towel rolled up. Johnson said Nomi’s reward is tennis balls and that she loves playing fetch.

“She would run all day if she could just retrieve that ball and keep bringing it back,” he said.

After they’re done working, K-9 officers go home with their handlers and are a part of their family. Haight said the dogs’ high motors are motivation for the handlers to wear them out during the work day so they don’t drive them crazy at home, though it doesn’t always work.

“I get energy out of (Grimm) all the time, but still drives me crazy,” Van Pelt said. “He never stops. But I love him.”