A warm spring day in May 1985, the dung heap stinks and steams. "Look nice!" Orders police commissioner Werner Franke and leaves Luise off the leash. The Wildsau gallops off, poking its trunk here and there in the 100-square-meter flatschen out of slippery Pferdedung. Three billion olfactory sensory cells are activated in the pigtail.

Abruptly she stops, squeaks loudly and wildly waves her pennon. Shuffling her hooves, she digs out a wooden box. Contents: white powder wrapped in foil - cocaine. "Finished", Franke praises his Luise and throws her reward for a chocolate biscuit. The spectators are amazed.

Luise was a trainee in the first year to the drug-search pig at the police, Werner Franke her foster father and teacher, as head of the teaching service dog training at the Lower Saxony police. In 1985, an NDR television crew made a live performance of Luise's extraordinary talent for the magazine "Schaufenster" for the first time.

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Luise was born on April 7, 1984 on a farm for children in the amusement park Sottrum. Three weeks later, Chief Commissioner Franke, 57, adopted the pig. He wanted to find out if wild boars could serve as snoopers not only for truffle farmers but also for drug investigators.

First hashish, then hard drugs

Franke started his experiment in September 1984 and spent three hours a day training with Luise in his spare time. "The holes that she raised with her trunk all over her kennel enclosure, testified to enormous energy and endurance," Franke remembered in 1987 in his book "Luise - career of a wild pig".

Their field training area was the industrial area of ​​Hildesheim harbor. The bristle baby quickly accepted Franke as Rottenführer and showed himself docile: "Neither barking dogs nor fares in the distance or a crowd nearby could keep the guy from snooping." At first Franke got used to his student with the smell of hashish, then heroin and even cocaine - a drug that was almost odorless.

By the way, Werner Franke mentioned his work with Luise at a technical lecture. A journalist became clueless, according to her article in March 1985 in the "Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung" media were keen on the sow. Soon Luise messages went around the world. So headlined the British "Sunday Times": "boar offensive against drug smugglers started". Fans sent newspaper clippings from India, Australia, the USA, Central America. The US broadcaster CBS, the British BBC and a Japanese television team came to Hildesheim for filming.

The Berlin Interior Senator Heinrich Lummer wanted to borrow "Hasch-Luise" even for "demonstration and study purposes". With a wink, he guaranteed in a letter that "neither the local meat processing industry nor accomplices of those dark circles with whom Luise lives in official enmity will have even the slightest chance of getting hold of her".

"Pigs in the police service"

Werner Franke completed dozens of television appearances with Luise. She reached the zenith of her career when she played in 1987 in a fun "crime scene" for the 200th episode of the crime series - as a speaking assistant to Inge Meysel alias Super Commissioner Susi Schlau.

However, the enthusiasm of the Lower Saxon state police was limited. Pigs simply had no place in the bureaucracy, neither in salary nor in the service regulations. And so decided the police department Hanover, Luise must be "removed" by 16 August 1985 from the service property.

Franke was shocked that his superiors did not appreciate his work, although it was successful. Although Luise had disadvantages: At over 150 kilograms, she was too fat and immobile to search for drugs in buildings and vehicles - but she was also persistent in the heat. When tracked dogs gave up panting, the brook sniffed tirelessly. In addition, her sensitive nose also responded to explosives of all kinds and carcasses.

Luises followers did not understand the rigorous instructions. "Where German stupid, authoritarian Shepherd dogs have their place, there must not be missing highly intelligent, sensitive pigs," said Jürgen Trittin, then Member of the Landtag, "the Greens are committed to: pigs in the police!"

"Bye, my girl!"

The quarrel ended Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Ernst Albrecht on 15 May 1986 and "verbeamtete" the pig. Luise was now official "Spürwildschwein", in the German abbreviation "SWS". And promptly received an entry in the "Guinness Book of Records" in October for her "use as the first spotted pig in the official police service to detect drugs".

Werner Franke retired in 1987, and even Luise had to leave her service-harness at the age of three. No colleague was ready and able to take her lead. Lower Saxony's Minister of the Interior Wilfried Hasselmann sent the only German Spürwildsau on 27 May 1987 into retirement and presented a brass plate on oak wood with police, plus the personal dedication: "Luise, you have such beautiful cherry eyes, bye my girl!"

Because of her career, Luise had had to put the family back. As a retiree, she found her own happiness: The prominent brook hit the handsome boar Lukas, they produced offspring. At the proud age of 14 Luise died in 1998 at her birthplace, in the family park Sottrum.

Surfers and actors, models and mascots: For the US holiday of the pig on March 1, one day in the photo gallery honors pigs who made a name for themselves and their careers .