Four members of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit recently returned from the United States Police Canine Association dog trials in Owensboro, Kentucky. Owensboro hosted the USPCA Region Five dog trials last week, which encompassed law enforcement agencies from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.
Out of a field of 40 teams, Deputy Robert Schmitt and K-9 Boss finished 2nd place in narcotics searches and Deputy Nathan Baehl and K-9 Ali finished 3rd. K-9 Boss and K-9 Ali were then evaluated in the areas of agility, obedience, suspect search, evidence search and criminal apprehension. After final scoring was completed, Deputy Schmitt and Deputy Baehl both finished with enough points to qualify for the USPCA national dog trials.
Sheriff Dave Wedding (who is a former K9 handler himself) offered his congratulations: “It takes countless hours of work and even more patience to train a dog to perform at a high enough level to qualify for national competition. I am extremely proud of Deputy Schmitt and Deputy Baehl, and of our entire Sheriff’s Office K9 unit.”
The Sheriff’s Office currently has three active K-9 teams. K-9’s are assigned to motor patrol and are cross trained in criminal apprehension, tracking and narcotics detection.
Pictured above: Deputy Robert Schmitt and K-9 Boss
Pictured above: Deputy Nathan Baehl and K-9 Ali
-END-