Loveland Police Department adds two new K-9 members
LOVELAND» The two newest members of the police department are going to be ruff on crime out on Loveland’s streets.
The department has added two new additions to the team’s K-9 unit: nearly 2year-old Bond and 19month-old Styng. Both dogs are Belgian Malinois, a dog breed that resembles a German shepherd. Bond comes from Hungary and Styng comes from Belgium.
The two dogs recently completed narcotic detection training and will be working with two LPD officers: Evan Goudy, who will be handling Bond, and Robert Croner, who will be handling Styng.
Both dogs will be used by the department for typical K-9 assignments, including narcotics searches, building searches and patrol duties.
Sgt. Steve Colburn, who is in charge of the K-9 unit, said that during a normal night a K-9 team will be called out from three to five times for assistance, on calls such as searching a building after a burglary alarm and narcotic searches.
Colburn said the dogs are purchased from overseas as “green” dogs; ones that have environmental and socialization training but little else. From there, the dogs and the handlers go through a 16-week course to get the dog prepared and certified to work the streets.
Colburn said the first eight weeks of training focus on olfactory and smelling training to get the dogs used to tracking scents and, in the case of Bond and Styng, sniff out narcotics.
The second eight weeks is focused on patrol training, which includes apprehension, tracking, evidence location and building searches. During the entire 16 weeks the officers and trainers work on human tracking training as well.
Colburn said both dogs did well and were certified with high ratings.
Goudy, a first-time K-9 handler, said the process of seeing Bond go through training was stressful, but rewarding.
“You are spending a lot of time training the dogs but you are also learning your own style and learning how to be a handler,” Goudy said. “It is a lot different than being a normal patrol officer.”
Croner, who has handled two other K-9 dogs before, said every dog he has handled over the years has been different.
“Training them all is different, their personalities are different, their abilities are different,” Croner said.
But the training does not stop after the 16-week certification period. Colburn said the unit will do weekly trainings together but all handlers train their dogs while at home.
“(Officers) generally go home and take off their gun belt, hang it up and they are off duty,” Croner said. “I go home, take off my gun belt, (and) I still have him. The training never stops.”
However, the training at home is not just work, as all three men agreed the dogs become more than just a police tool.
“They’re a part of our family,” Colburn said.
“The families are just as bought in as we are,” Goudy said, adding his wife will often help him with his training at home.
All three men also agreed that having the dogs around is not only great as a tool for handling police work but for connecting to the community.
Colburn said with a dog’s smelling ability being able to sense things at one part per trillion, they prove an incredible resource in police searches.
Croner added that sending a dog to find something or somebody can bring results faster than 20 officers put together.
“They are a force multiplier,” Croner said. “The fact we can deploy a dog … to search an area for something or somebody, the likelihood and the probability of that dog locating that item or finding that person we are seeking is far higher than us just searching by ourselves.”
Goudy added the dogs are also great resources for keeping officers safe.
“We can send the dogs in and their abilities are so much better than anything we are capable of,” Goudy said.
“We can send them into crawl spaces and buildings where potentially dangerous people are at.”
Colburn said the dogs also help create a community connection. Dog training and K-9 abilities are often demonstrated to the public, and Colburn said having the dogs illustrates the connection between community members and police officers.
“We can make that connection with the citizens and allow them to see that we are just people like anybody else and we are here to keep them safe,” Colburn said. “The dogs really help us with that connection.”