Gumshoos are typically the first native pokemon seen by travelers to Alola, but their presence near the airports is often mistaken for that of local fauna. In reality, the Gumshoos are invariably trained by local police officers, and they watch these travelers carefully to ensure that nothing enters Alola without the knowledge of the authorities.

Gumshoos are known throughout Alola for their remarkable sense of sight, which is capable of peering through the small gaps in a closed fist, the outline of pockets and pokeballs, and a variety of far more inventive hiding places – along with a sense of smell comparable to that of canine pokemon. They are highly intelligent creatures who can be trained to recognize and monitor a large number of illegal drugs and pokemon species. Indeed, police departments are said to rely so heavily on Gumshoos that many of the idiosyncrasies in regional legislation are assumed to derive not from ancient customs, but from the biological limitations of Gumshoos making violations impossible to detect.

In an age where pokemon battles have become a major international sport, it is just as important that Gumshoos, with sufficient training, can communicate in impressive detail just what they saw. The species clause may forbid a pokemon trainer from using multiple individuals of the same species, but a single introduced breeding pair can wreak havoc on the local environment. Therefore, trainers of particularly threatening species must be closely monitored, especially should multiple specimens of opposite sexes be present on the island at the same time. That wild Gumshoos have grown to be one of the most common large pokemon in Alola may be an environmental catastrophe – but it is one which has done much to allay the suspicions of smugglers, allowing domestic Gumshoos to prevent any further disasters.