The Torrance County Detention Center in Estancia has a new officer-- and he is covered in black hair and loves to fetch a camouflage chew toy.

Meet Jake, a black Labrador that may be the Torrance County Detention Facility's best defense against narcotics.

"We've got a lot of high hopes for this particular dog," said Juan Ibarra, the prison's chief of security. "If you weren't scared before, you should be now."

He said the dog is a deterrent against prisoners, and visitors, bringing drugs into the prison. Drugs in prison are always an issue, and it's not just about prisoners breaking the law or causing harm to themselves, he said. When inmates have narcotics, they can use them to make money or control other prisoners.

"We don't want inmates running anything," he said.

Maintaining control of the prison doesn't just make the jobs of the prison staff easier, it also helps keep the inmates safe, he said.

But to look at him, it's hard to imagine Jake could be the key to curtailing illegal commerce in drugs or stopping a prison riot before it starts. He is a full-grown dog, weighing more than 50 pounds, but has the loping mannerisms of a puppy. He seems to be eager to get to work.

Ivonne Riley, the prison's quality assurance manager, said that other than the dog's handler, the staff isn't allowed to touch him.

Jake isn't treated like other dogs, Ibarra said. He's an employee.

"A working dog is more a partner than a pet," Ibarra said. "They're getting paid to do a job."

That kind of restraint can be hard, Riley said, because the dog is so cute.

In a demonstration of his drug-finding abilities, Jake skittered across a linoleum floor, not finding much traction as he hunted around a large room in the prison. He panted, ran and bounced off a wall or two until, finally, he jammed his nose between two red plastic chairs that were neatly stacked in a corner. Then he reared up and scratched at them.

That's where K9 Sergeant Jimmie Ray had hidden a plastic bag containing a piece of cotton that had been rubbed with marijuana. Ray held the cotton to his own nose and said it didn't smell like much of anything to him.

As a reward, Ray, clearly a dog person, tossed Jake his favorite chew toy, a camouflage cylinder that quickly became soggy. Jake went after the toy with a single-mindedness that any Labrador owner would instantly recognize.

Jake is Ray's second canine partner. His first partner, a German shepherd named Anuck, retired a month ago. Anuck became Ray's pet, along with four other dogs, and is busy enjoying her retirement, Ray said.

"We miss her," Ivonne said. "She was all business."

Anuck and Ray were the first K9 team to work in the prison when the program started in 2003. Unlike Anuck, who came with a price tag of $4,500, Jake was a rescue dog that was then trained at a Corrections Corporation of America facility, the company that owns and operates the Torrance County prison.

Papers or no papers, Jake is a fine partner, Ray said.

"(Rescue dogs) are better than the ones we were paying big bucks for," he said.