(June 16, 2009) — Canine handler Al Hradecky and contraband detection canine Rebel, a yellow Labrador Retriever, have been servicing the GUSD and Clark Magnet High School for longer than any student now at Clark has been here. Yet few seniors in their four years here have seen them at all, and even fewer more than once or twice. Senior Class Vice President Ani Khachatoorians has seen them “once every two months, maybe,” since she has started parking in the student parking lot. But she is comforted by their presence. “It actually makes me feel really protected, knowing that the school actually cares if students bring illegal drugs, weapons and stuff to school, and knowing that they have the police involved too, and those dogs are obviously perfectly trained,” she said. What Khachatoorians and some other students don’t know is that, in fact, the Glendale Police Department is not involved at all. The dogs are owned and trained by a franchise of Interquest, a national corporation that runs canine contraband detection operations for schools and businesses. Scott Edmins owns the franchise that services 105 schools in the Los Angeles and Ventura County areas. Edmins holds a DEA Researcher’s License to handle narcotics and trains all of his own dogs, which live with handlers like Hradecky. Unlike police dogs which only detect illegal narcotics, Rebel and other Interquest dogs are trained to detect alcohol, gun powder residue, and abused prescription drugs, primarily synthetic opiates such as oxycotin and vicadin, as well as illegal drugs such as marijuana, heroin and cocaine. Handlers are entirely in control of when they visit a school; not even administrators are warned ahead of time. But Khachatoorians doesn’t mind the lack of police involvement. “I don’t think it makes a difference, as long as they’re doing something about it, you know? Honestly, you can’t trust teenagers…so the fact that they care about our safety makes me feel better.” Other students aren’t so happy about the presence of Hradecky and Rebel on campus. “The school has every right to bring narcotics dogs on campus, and I have every right to fool them,” said one anonymous senior.