YOUNGSTOWN — For a crime fighter who can sniff out criminal activity, Bubba, the 2-year-old Labrador retriever has a mild and friendly nature.

When Sheriff Jerry Greene and Deputy Jeff Rich introduced Bubba to the Mahoning County commissioners Thursday, he warmed right up to them, producing appreciative remarks from the commissioners.

“He’s an awesome dog,” the sheriff said like a proud papa.

While Greene and Rich explained the reason for acquiring another canine, news folks moved in for photos and videos, but Bubba shyly turned away.

Bubba is only the second electronics detection dog in Ohio, the 50th one in the United States, trained to smell electronic devices, such as SIM cards in cell phones, thumb drives, tablet and laptop computers and other places people might try to hide child pornography, Greene said.

Bubba is assigned to the sheriff’s Human Trafficking Task Force, which investigates child pornography and other sexually oriented offenses and human trafficking. Rich is Bubba’s handler, meaning Bubba lives with Rich.

“Our unit has relied upon Cuyahoga County over the last few years. We’ve been able to use their dog,” Greene said.

But when the sheriff’s office learned that a nonprofit organization called Operation Underground Railroad was willing to pay the cost to provide an electronics detection canine, the sheriff’s office took advantage of the opportunty. The only cost to the sheriff’s office was for Rich’s training and lodging during training.

“When you have something like an SD card or micro SD card, and it’s hidden somewhere in that house, he can detect that,” Rich said.

“The perpetrator will hide those in his house or wherever. He can smell that. We can’t smell that.”

Major Bill Cappabianca said a dog trained to do this makes the job of finding hidden electronics much more efficient.

“It’s very common to hide a SIM card … inside of a phone. So when you are talking about a 2,500 square foot home, and you are trying to find a SIM card in a cabinet, or in coffee containers, you may miss it when you’re there on a search warrant.

“Now we want suspects to know we’re not going to miss it with the addition of Bubba to the sheriff’s office,” he said.

Rich gave the commissioners a demonstration of Bubba’s skill, showing Bubba the area he wanted him to search. When Bubba sniffed Rich’s jacket, he sat, alerting Rich that he had found the scent he had been trained to find.

The next command told him to identify the location of the smell, which Bubba did by pawing or scratching the location, in this case, the deputy’s pocket, where Rich’s cell phone was located.

“What we have discovered over the years with this task force is that much of our crime is child pornography unfortunately,” Greene said. “The dog is trained primarily to detect a component within all electronic equipment.”

Rich said people have asked whether Bubba has a hard time relaxing with all of the electronics around him all of the time, but the answer is no.

“He doesn’t care about electronics unless he is working,” Rich said. “He may know where they are in the room, but some people have asked, ‘wouldn’t it drive him crazy to smell all of these electronics?’ Because unless he’s working, he just leaves them alone.”