BARTLESVILLE POLICE: K-9 unit will be expanded

Published on December 26, 2017

Bartleville Police will see new dogs as well as an addition to the K-9 unit next year.

“We are in the process of creating a three person K-9 unit for criminal intervention and narcotis enforcement,” BPD Chief Tom Holland said. “This will be kicking off in a few weeks and that has great promise.”

The unit has been successful in recent years with former Police Dog Apollo becoming integral to the department as well as a popular figure in the public.

BPD K-9 officer Troy Newell said the two dogs that had been trained for the department didn’t work out and two more dogs are being prepared.

“These particular dogs just didn’t work out with our department, and were never placed on duty,” Newell said. “The dogs that are in training now are Malinois, which is what the military uses. They are usually smaller in stature but they have a lot higher drive.”

He said Malinois “don’t pull their prey down like a shepherd does.”

“They will run though you instead of grabbing you and can work longer and have a higher drive,” he said.

According to the American Kennel Club, the Belgian Malinois stand 22 to 26-inches at the shoulder, and is strong, agile, well muscled, alert and full of life. whose name is derived from Malines, the French name for the breed’s Flemish city of origin, Mechelen

“In the 21st century, the breed has proven invaluable to the military. Cairo, a Belgian Malinois, a member of Seal Team Six, played a critical role in the 2011 raid that took down the world’s most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden,” according to the AKC website.

The Belgian Malinois also is used by the Secret Service to guard the White House grounds.

The Bartlesville Police Department’s K-9 unit’s dogs are Atlas, Diesel and Duke. Atlas has came into the department in 2017 to replace Apollo, who retired.

“We’re not sure when we are getting the new ones, it’s a multimonth endeavor so we are looking at sometime early to mid-2018,” Holland said.