2015 WCSO K9 Trials

Yesterday Washington County Sheriff's Office hosted the 2015 k9 Trials. It's an event where various k9's from various police agencies show off their skills and compete for the top dog award.

The categories the dogs competed in were:

Area Searches for Suspects and Evidence [Someone hid in a box out of sight of handler and dog.]
Agility Course
Fastest Dog [They used a portable radar unit and had the dogs run towards it for the helper.]
Suspect Apprehension
Vehicle Extraction
Handler (Officer) Protection
Top Dog

They explained to the crowd that the dogs help because people tend to respect the dogs and often times the police will not have to use force to apprehend a suspect because they will give themselves up if there are dogs around.

I wish I had taken notes, I can't remember specifics but one dog has had 44 captures in his career, another dog tracked a hit and run suspect for 3 miles, another dog had just caught 2 suspects within the last two days. It appears that these dogs are very good at their jobs. Some of the dogs were detection dogs [drugs], some of the dogs were tracking/apprehension dogs, some of them were dual purpose.

It was fun to watch the officers work their dogs, it was also fun to watch each dog work differently. I did grab a few pictures and thought I would share my favorites.

He's not supposed to be biting the pants.

This Shepherd was awesome!