Through the Greene County Sheriff’s office fundraising efforts and the donations by community members, a new K-9 was purchased with additional training.
Leo is a two-year German shepherd dog who was recently purchased by the sheriff’s office as a replaced for Ranger, a ten year-old black laboratory canine who his handler, Chief Deputy Sheriff Jack Williams previously told Raccoon Valley Radio that they wanted to give Ranger a dog normal dog’s life when they get that old.
Williams comments that Leo was first used in last Wednesday’s drug bust in Rippey at a Sparky’s One Stop gas station after only completing a two-week training course in Anamosa at the end of the previous week.
The K-9 comes was additional training. Williams states that Ranger was trained in only narcotics and tracking and with Leo, he is trained in evidence and narcotics detection and apprehension.
He talks about what some of the training was like during the two-weeks with Leo in Anamosa.
“We did apprehension training to where we have a trainer or a decoy as we call them, put on a bite suit and they’ll attack me or agitated the dog by yelling, screaming (or) acting aggressively and he (Leo) has to respond in certain ways in different situations.”
Williams points out that he and Leo passed the PD1-Police/K-9 certification course without any deductions and to keep his certification, Williams has to have 32 hours of training per month.
He notes that the K-9 Unit supports all the surrounding counties including Carroll, Boone, Guthrie, Story and Calhoun.
Williams adds that they have applied for a grant with the Greene County Community Foundation for $5,000 to purchase and upgrade his vehicle so that a kennel is built into his vehicle and automatic doors can let Leo out without someone needing to manually open the doors to use him.
For videos of the training, click the link below:
On Friday, the Greene and Carroll County Sheriff’s offices both conducted training at Kelso Park in Jefferson. Deputy Dave Kersey acted as a criminal for Leo to train with along with Raccoon Valley Radio’s Coltrane Carlson. Photos are of Kersey training with Carroll County’s K-9 Unit.
