K-9 Spring Trials Hosted in Scenic City

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- They’re called “k-9 officers,” and law enforcement agencies have learned to depend on their 4-legged partners.

This week, the Chattanooga police department is hosting the spring trials for K-9’s from three states.

Fifty police departments have sent 60 to 70 K-9 handler teams to the Moccasin Bend training area this week.

They do this often to make sure the officer/handler and the dog are working as a finely tuned machine.

There’s a big investment here.

“Typically you can expect to have 25 or 30,000 dollars in one of these dogs with all the training and the cost just to buy the dogs,” stated Sgt. Sean O’Brien.

The animals are judged on obedience, agility, and search certifications.

There are things these dogs can do that no human can match.

“Obviously , number one their nose is phenomenal–so much better that a human’s. So whether you’re talking about bomb odors, narcotic odors, uh, either human odors…their ability to detect that is far better than ours,” said Sgt. O’Brien

Officer O’Brien is amazed at some things the K9’s are able to do.

“Just like last week, one of our dogs was able to track a suspect up Raccoon mountain..Uh, and unbelievable terrain and without that dog we would have never found that individual. So, they are such a great asset to what we’re trying to do.”

The K9 teams are even trained to do things most of us may not even think about.

“Obviously on the street there may be times where you…you need to tell the dog to do something from a distance, but you don’t want to verbalize it because you don’t want to give away your position, and that’s why they’re trained to also do hand signals..not just verbal signals,” said Sgt. O’Brien.

K-9’s usually have about an eight year career before they are retired…competitions like these make sure they stay at a high level of training.