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The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department has had a full time continuously operating canine unit since 1986. The unit started with the purchase of a German Shepherd named "Falk" and his handler was Danny Thompson. The purchase of this canine was solely funded by private donations from citizens, businesses, community groups and other organizations. Since then the canine unit has grown to six working K9 teams.
All the K9 teams that are currently working within the Sheriff’s Department are patrol trained as well as trained to detect narcotics. The K9 teams are assigned to
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the patrol division within the Sheriff’s Department and there is a K9 team assigned to each of the six stations the Sheriff’s Department has throughout the county, which include the contract cities of Ojai, Fillmore, Camarillo, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks. The K9 Unit is directly overseen by a captain and a sergeant. The K9 teams are required to train a minimum of 12 hours a week, so they are ready to assist patrol officers, detectives, narcotics detectives and SWAT in locating wanted felons. The K9 teams also assist in locating missing adults and children, narcotics and evidence. The canines are able to detect the five most common narcotics we come across, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, marijuana and MDMA or ecstasy.
The current patrol canines are German Shepherds which are imported from European countries. The untrained patrol canine cost is approximately $8,000 - $9,000. The canines are normally 16 to 24 months old when we get them. The training is conducted by Dave Inglis, from the Inglis Police Dog Academy, and overseen by the unit captain and sergeant. The patrol training takes approximately four weeks and then the K9 team must be certified by the guidelines set by the Peace Officers Standards and Training, P.O.S.T. After the K9 team has been certified they are ready to be put into service on the street. After the canine passes his/her certification they are issued a badge with their name and canine number on it. The K9 team must certify every year in compliance with standards set by P.O.S.T.
After the K9 team has been on the street for approximately six months and the bond between the handler and canine has grown, they are sent to a narcotics detection school for 3 weeks, hosted by the Inglis Police Dog Academy, at a cost of $4,000. After completing this course the K9 team must be certified by the guidelines set by P.O.S.T. for narcotic detection canines. The K9 team must certify every year as well to be in compliance with P.O.S.T. guidelines.
The total cost of training a canine for patrol and narcotics detection is between $11,000 and $12,000. The approximate cost to maintain the canine through the year with food, equipment, veterinary bills and training is approximately $4,000.
The canines help us do our job safer and faster than we would be able to do without them. The canines save the department hundreds if not thousands of man-hours every year. The canines freely and willingly go into areas officers are not able to. We rely on the canines to use their special abilities to help us locate suspects, evidence, narcotics or missing people quickly.
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The Sheriff’s Department canine unit has been solely funded by private donations from citizens, community groups, organizations and businesses since it began in 1986. The first canine which was purchased for the Sheriff’s Department was done through bake sales and craft sales by our Public Safety Dispatchers with the Sheriff’s Department. Since then we have formed the Ventura Sheriff’s Canine Foundation. We still get donations from various businesses, organizations, citizens and community groups, but our two main fund raisers are a yearly celebrity golf tournament and a 9K4K9 walk/run.
All the handlers with the Sheriff’s Department share a strong bond with their canine partners. Every department handler takes his or her canine home. The canines become an intricate part of the handler’s family. Each handler is issued a canine car for emergency call outs and transportation of the canine. Law Enforcement in general is much more than a job it is a way of life, but being a canine handler is truly a way of life. You bring your family member to work with you each and every day and ask him/her to do things that are inherently dangerous. |
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