They wear badges and they’re deputies – but if they apprehend you, chances are you’ll need stitches. On the other hand, if you’re lost and need help, you may discover how wet their noses are.
They’re the dogs of the Saratoga County Sheriff’s K9 Unit — 10 German Shepherds, each paired with an officer/handler whom they work and live with. They sniff out everything from drugs to missing persons, and making sure they’re always at the ready is a full-time job in its own right.
Sergeant Andy Kelley has been with the unit for 20 years and oversees training.
“We start out with basic obedience … then you get into tracking from a hard surface to a grass surface to wooded areas,” he said. From there, dogs develop specialties.
All of the dogs are certified for tracking, two have specialties in detecting explosives and the rest are trained to detect narcotics.
Training is done near the shelter and county jail, with additional training done in Cooperstown with the New York State Police. The German Shepherd breed is a good fit for police work and according to Kelley, all of them come from the Saratoga Animal Shelter.
He also said it’s important a canine officer “always wins.”
“You never want the dog to feel defeat. You always leave it on a positive … if he goes on a track and doesn’t find somebody, we tell the guys to take him away from the scene and run a short reassuring track. Run it into the woods and hide, give him a quick find and give him his toy,” he said.
Kelley and his officers meet monthly for training. Dogs are recertified every three years and need 96 hours of training annually.
Officer Kevin Lancto and his partner Nio have been with the unit since October. He said when there’s an opening within the K9 Unit many officers apply as it’s a popular post.
“It’s an elite part of the Sheriff’s Office,” said Lancto.
Nio’s specialty lies in explosives. He’s named after Ryan Bonaminio, another police officer who served with Lancto for 14 months in Iraq. Bonaminio was killed in the line of duty in Riverside, Calif., in 2010. Like all officer/canine teams, Nio lives with Lancto and his family.
“He knows that when that badge goes on, it’s time to work and he’s all business,” said Lancto. “When he’s home, he’s just great with the family and people.”
“It’s definitely a huge commitment and a change of lifestyle,” he added.
Like their human counterparts, the dogs are always on duty and work eight-hour shifts. Kelley said that day and midnight shifts will usually have three dogs on patrol, while shifts running from 4 p.m. to midnight may have four dogs. They typically assist in vehicle stops, burglaries, building searches and missing person cases, to name but a few.
In a burglary scenario, Kelley said, “A dog is deployed when a person is seen running from the area. You introduce the dog to the area and he should pick up the scent, or if it’s an unknown scent you do what we call an interdicting track.”
Forming an interdicting track is like taking an area and dividing it like a pie. The dog then crosses the area, covering it back and forth.
“When the dog picks up the scent he’ll put his head down and officer knows he’s picked itup,” he said.
Success for finding missing persons depends on the weather and how long somebody has been missing. Kelley explained that if it’s a dry day, the scent doesn’t hold. On a day with snow or dew present, the odds are better.
On a recent training day, officers met up near the county jail outside of Ballston Spa to simulate a routine traffic stop. Lancto donned a protective sleeve and played the bad guy, fleeing when Officer David Petrie pulled him over.
Petrie deployed his partner Zeuss through eye contact.
Zeuss took Lancto down by attacking the arm in the protective sleeve. “Whatever is presented to the dog, the dog will apprehend first,” said Kelley.
The scenario played out was not unlike the events surrounding a bank robbery in Ballston Spa on Wednesday, May 30.
Officer Mike Traylor and his partner Koda were on patrol that day, heading north near Middleline Road. Traylor deployed Koda when the robbery suspect set off on foot after a vehicle accident on Middleline Road.
Kelley said an apprehension was made thanks in no small part to Koda’s work. It was the unit’s first apprehension this year, and Kelley said the dogs have been “instrumental” in locating many missing persons and in investigations that have led to numerous arrests.
And unlike humans, when these partners get to retirement age, they rarely go their separate ways.
“I’ve never seen a handler give up their dog,” said Kelley.
