Heather Frazier, a 20-year veteran in the Wichita Police Department, used to be afraid of dogs. Now she’s the department’s “Dog Whisperer.”
When she was a young girl, she had a paper route for the Trinidad Chronicle, a small newspaper serving southeast Colorado and northeast New Mexico. This was before the internet, when newspapers had morning and afternoon editions, it was acceptable to keep a dog chained in the front yard, and people trusted each other enough to let their 10-year-old daughter deliver the paper by herself.
But Frazier was never exactly alone on her paper routes. Every day, saddled with a bundle of afternoon editions and rubber bands, she tossed papers onto porches while a big black mutt with a white head was running along behind her, following her as she made her rounds.
Frazier, who now works the west beat for Wichita police, would shy away, afraid the dog would attack her. “She would follow me, and she scared the crap out of me — she was huge,” Frazier said.
“We did that for a little bit — scaring the crap out of me — and then finally my mom was just like, ‘Why don’t you keep her? She likes you.’ “It was the right choice, and $5 later, she had her first dog, which she named Lady.
It’s Frazier’s love for animals, and what animals can do for humans, that drove her to become “expert certified” in investigating animal abuse at the University of Missouri, she told The Wichita Eagle . The Wichita Police Department recently announced she will be the lead on any felony-level cases involving animals.
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