On November 7, 2006, a six-pound chihuahua and rat terrier mix named Midge passed Ohio's certification as a narcotics dog and joined the K9 unit at the Geauga County Sheriff's Office in Chardon, Ohio. Her handler was the sheriff himself, Dan McClelland. Guinness World Records logged her that same day as the smallest police dog, at 28 centimeters (11 inches) tall and 58 centimeters (23 inches) long, and the record still stands under her name. She worked the job for a decade. What follows is the dated version of a story that usually circulates online with no dates at all.

Why a sheriff trained a six-pound dog

The reasoning was practical rather than sentimental. The Associated Press reported on August 3, 2006, in a story by Connie Mabin, that McClelland began training Midge at about three months old after reading about departments being sued by suspects whose cars and homes were damaged during searches by large dogs. A detection dog that physically cannot shred upholstery or gouge a door frame removes that exposure. Bob Eden, a police dog trainer quoted in the same report, added the operational half of the argument: smaller dogs reach tighter spaces.

The AP described Midge at that point as seven months old and six pounds. McClelland told the wire service she was "very calm," not "yappy," and that she "likes people a lot, really loves kids." One caution for anyone repeating her biography: accounts of her exact birth date do not agree. The age given in the AP's August 2006 report and the birthday cited in later local Ohio coverage cannot both be correct, and no available source settles it.

What the job actually involved

According to the Guinness entry, Midge's Ohio certification made her alert to the presence of marijuana and allowed her work to support arrests, search warrants, and drug seizures, with her alerts recognized by courts. Guinness records that she completed her first school locker search at six months old, ran drug checks on inmate property at county facilities, and searched vehicles, including underneath them and inside compartments no German shepherd could enter. She also worked the public half of a K9's job, appearing at demonstrations and anti-drug education programs. In its 2024 account of her career, Guinness described her as trained on marijuana and heroin.

The part McClelland kept saying out loud

He was direct about how the partnership looked from the outside. "It's not the most macho thing to be a police officer with a dog that might look like she might belong to Paris Hilton, but you don't have to be the biggest kid on the block to do good things," he said, in remarks published by Guinness World Records. The version he used with schoolchildren was shorter. He told the AP his message was that "even when you're small, if you take a stand you can make a difference." Colleagues confirmed the draw was real: retired Lt. John Hiscox, quoted in reporting published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said taking Midge to public events "was like bringing Elvis Presley to the midway," and Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand said McClelland joked that parade crowds greeted the pair as "Midge and whatshisname."

Retirement in 2017 and two deaths in 2021

McClelland joined the Geauga County Sheriff's Office in 1976 as a road deputy, was sworn in as sheriff in 2003, and retired on January 1, 2017, closing 44 years in law enforcement, according to his obituary in the Geauga County Maple Leaf. Midge retired with him. A February 2018 feature in the same paper reported that the pair spent four months traveling 21 states by motorhome, and quoted McClelland on how closely she tracked the end of the routine: "She would watch me closely in the morning to see if I was going to put on my uniform. She would even follow me into the closet to watch."

McClelland died on April 14, 2021, at 67, after a year-long battle with brain cancer, his obituary states. Midge died hours later the same day, and WSAZ reported, citing the sheriff's office and the family, that she would be buried at his side. Several outlets have since described her as dying of a broken heart. That is a characterization, not a finding. No veterinary cause of death for Midge has been published, and she was roughly 15 years old.

What Midge does and does not prove about the breed

She was a mix rather than a purebred, which matters for anyone reading her career as a breed argument; the working traits on the rat terrier side are covered in our guide to chihuahua mixes. What her record does support is narrower and still useful: a small, stable, people-tolerant dog can be trained to a serious scent standard, which fits what owners already observe about chihuahua intelligence and about how the breed responds to short, consistent training sessions. It also undercuts the assumption behind the ankle-biter reputation, since a reactive dog clears neither a certification test nor a school assembly. What it does not do is make any given chihuahua a candidate for detection work, or for the legally distinct role described in our piece on chihuahuas as service dogs.

Frequently asked questions

Was Midge really a certified police dog?

Yes. She passed Ohio's certification as a narcotics dog on November 7, 2006, and served with the Geauga County Sheriff's Office, per Guinness World Records and contemporaneous Associated Press reporting. Her alerts could support arrests, search warrants, and seizures, rather than functioning only as a public-relations act.

What is the smallest police dog in the world?

Guinness World Records lists Midge, at 28 centimeters (11 inches) tall and 58 centimeters (23 inches) long. The record dates to the day she certified in November 2006, and the entry remained under her name when checked in July 2026.

Are other chihuahuas doing detection work?

Small dogs do appear in scent detection, and the tight-space advantage a trainer described to the AP in 2006 is genuine. But no agency publishes a count, and Midge remains the only one with a world record attached. For almost every owner, nose work belongs in the category of home enrichment rather than career planning.

The durable detail here is not the record. It is that a sheriff chose a six-pound dog for a liability reason, trained her to a standard that held up in court, and then spent a decade being introduced second at parades. Midge worked from November 2006 until the start of 2017 and died on April 14, 2021, hours after her handler. Most of what circulates about her online is decoration on those facts.