Claremont Police Introduce Its Newest (Four-Legged) Staffer

After recently reinstating its K9 program, the Claremont Police Department added its first member to the program in over a decade. The canine officer, “Dodger,” is partnered with School Resource Officer Sean Evans and is limited to drug searches, Police Chief Paul Cooper said.

With the dog being on a school campus, the police department hopes that it will be “a deterrent to anyone bringing illegal drugs on school grounds,” Cooper said.

According to the K9 Global Training Academy, there are two kinds of K9 working dogs: single purpose and dual purpose. Dual-purpose dogs are cross-trained, which means they are trained as patrol dogs and one other specialty, such as detecting narcotics. Single-purpose dogs are trained to specialize in one area.

Police dogs can be trained to specialize in a variety of tasks. To name a few, there are: search and rescue, explosives, narcotics, tracking, arson and patrol dogs.

“Dodger” is a single purpose dog and specializes in drugs only, Cooper said.

“Dogs have a keen sense of smell and can detect odors that humans cannot,” Cooper said. “The use of dogs to detect drugs, accelerants or explosives is much faster and can result in these items being found through the dog's sense of smell, where they may not have been if it were just an officer searching for the same things.”

Cooper said, “The speed at which the dogs can search reduces the officer's time,” therefore, saving the police department money.

Dogs have long been referred to as “man's best friend,” giving people a natural tendency to “have a genuine interest and affection for dogs,” Cooper said. “People tend to gravitate toward the dogs.”

Cooper said not only are the canines “a great public relations tool for the community,” but having the K9 will “help to strengthen the community and police partnership.”

Writer Stephanie Jimenez is a freelance contributor to Claremont-La Verne Patch and a Journalism student.