Ozark County, MO. – The Ozarks County Sheriff’s Department was nice enough to come down this week to continue our Back the Blue in support of the working and retired K9 dogs. Police K9s are much-needed in the community. They help their handlers and their departments apprehend criminals and detect illegal substances. Josh Sherman is the K9 handler in the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department. He handles two K9s for the department. K9 Rye is a semi-retired K9, who was forced to retire early due to marijuana legalization. They continue to use her at schools and for PR purposes. K9 Karo is a full-time dual-purpose dog. This means he was trained in apprehension and in sniffing out illegal substances.
While here, we talked about many different things mainly focusing on the difference between a semi-retired and a full-time K9 and how they must act at work, as well as, their personalities off the job and their job records. Many people can be curious, including me, about how K9 dogs act when they are not out on an active job. Do they act like pets or are they always on the job? Josh Sherman first gave a rundown of each dog’s personality. K9 Karo was described as a workhorse but with him being only 2 years old has his moments of wanting to play. Listen below for more information on full-time Karo:
K9 Rye was described as the boss and the dog who runs the show. She is bubbly and way more into human affection than K9 Karo. Listen below for K9 Rye’s personality:
He then jumped into the K9’s work days. Did you know that K9s work longer than most humans do? K9 Karo and K9 Rye can work up to 12-hour shifts a day, this doesn’t include big events or happenings that the dogs are required for. Listen below to a full work day:
Every dog trained in apprehension has what are called bites. Bites are the number of people that had to bite to apprehend while helping their handlers hunt down criminals. Last week the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office stated that neither of their K9s had any bites. Josh Sherman explained that K9 Karo, their dual-purpose dog, has not had any bites yet but has come close. Many criminals give up once they see the K9s come on the scene. Listen below:
As is well known, K9 officers have handlers. K9s have a strong connection with their handlers. They listen entirely to their owners. They can get along with other deputies and officers inside the department but only listen to the commands given by their handlers. K9 Rye was described as being able to be handled by one other person in the department because he was her first handler before he left. According to Deputy Sherman, K9 Karo listens to him and only him. Listen below for some handling facts:
K9s can come from all over to be used in departments. Josh Sherman explained that K9 Rye is from Oklahoma in the United States. He says that he is still in touch with the people he bought her from. K9 Karo was born in Belgium before he came to the United States. Listen below to learn some background on K9 Karo and Rye:
K9 Karo and Rye were both trained in separate locations and for different things. K9 Karo is a dual-purpose dog meaning he had to spend two more weeks in training and had longer training days to learn both apprehension and drug detection. K9 Rye only had to learn drug detection which meant that she didn’t have to go through as much training to become a certified K9. Listen below to learn more about their training schedule and time frame:
As stated earlier, after the legalization of marijuana, departments had to retire dogs that were taught to sniff out marijuana. Once a dog is taught to track something, they can’t unlearn it. K9 Rye had to be retired. Though they still use her for PR and for sniffing out drugs at schools, she has her days off. According to Josh Sherman, Rye had no problem with the transition, enjoying her toys and her time off. Listen below to learn more about post-retirement K9 Rye:
The Ozark County Sheriff’s Department is also a donation-based organization. They rely on community donations to fund new dog body armor, food, and more. Consider helping them during their fundraiser to help keep the much-needed K9s on the force.
