What Does It Take To Be On The Patrol?

Published on October 20, 2017

Terre Haute – The Terre Haute Police Department is comprised of officers who specialize in very specific areas.
For instance some are trained to handle drug busts or crimes involving children, and some have four legs.
The K-9 unit entails very specific pairs of dogs and handlers.
I learned that each dog is specifically picked out with their teammate in mind.
All of the dogs on Terre Haute’s K-9 patrol are European. This is because Europeans breeds dogs for show, they care less about looks, and more about performance.
Dogs are an essential asset to the police force because they have a natural advantage to human officers.

Sgt. Todd Haller is on the K-9 Patrol, he says, “when we smell beef stew cooking, we smell the stew in combination. But the dog is actually able to break down those ingredients. We take our dogs and teach them to get as close to get as close to the source of the odor as they can and that will give us a better pin point direction on where that odor might be.”

The teams are required to train twice a month, 8-16 hours minimum.
Officers are also required to train on their own outside of the required time.
This goes for both new pups and old dogs. Officers say they need to keep their skills keen because they always want to be ready when duty calls.
These four-legged officers can be used for SWAT operations, narcotics, bombs, and even tracking suspects for things like robberies.
Most commonly, the K-9’s are used during times when it is dark because of their heightened senses and the increase in violent crime.
But in order to train these dogs you have to teach them a game. A game that plays on their natural ability.

Lt. Terry John is the K-9 Unit Instructor, he says, “they are not looking they are using their nose, and primarily they are looking for their tennis ball. It is the dog’s hunt drive. The stronger the hunt drive the more apt they are to hunt and find whatever material we are trying to get them to find.”

When training the K-9 team the officers use real drugs, bombs, and even people so that when the dogs are in a real life situation, they know what to do.
Nationally the average time it takes to train a K-9 officer to be street ready is between 4-6 weeks of intense training.
But that is not just for the dog. The handler’s also have to be trained on how to give commands and read when their partner has caught on to something.