"Athena is serving the Dallas Independent School District Police Department." "Storm is serving the Ferris (TX) Independent School District Police Department," Coleman says. The two most recent K-9 placements by Universal K9 are dogs named Storm and Athena. "The dog is trained to provide sit and stare signals to the handler."Ĭurrently, there are more than 20 pit bull-type dogs working as K-9s nationwide. "Upon completion, the dog is professionally trained to seek out a variety of narcotic odors," says Coleman. The dogs must rely on their sense of smell instead of their sight in order to complete each task. "If during that time a dog does not respond well, Universal K9 or Austin Pets Alive! will dedicate time to find the dog a good home," Coleman says.ĭogs that pass the evaluation are taught a variety of tasks such as finding hidden toys and retrieving them. "Once the dog is selected and evaluated for the program, it undergoes a four- to eight-week training in San Antonio (with Brad Croft of Universal K9)," says Stacey Coleman, executive director of AFF.ĭuring the first week of the training program the dogs are evaluated for K-9 potential.
The Universal K9 training program provides constant activity for dogs with high play drives and excessive energy. The funding goes toward covering the expenses of handler training as well as care and shelter for the dogs. All of these animals and dogs that look like them are commonly referred to as "pit bulls.")ĪFF teams up with Universal K9 by providing the company with grant money. (The majority of dogs in American animal shelters are bully breeds or bully breed mixes: Staffordshire terriers, American pit bull terriers, American bully, and Staffordshire bull terrier. However, when the founder adopted a pit bull, she realized the growing need to help dogs in shelters and rescues. A partner of Universal K9, AFF was originally founded as a horse rescue. Programs focused on training shelter or rescue dogs for police work are increasing in popularity and that can be attributed to the work of the Animal Farm Foundation (AFF). "Many times the dogs that are overlooked by families work really well for our program," Croft says, adding that shelter dogs are primarily trained only for detection and tracking. When searching for a shelter dog that will make a good fit for law enforcement operations, Croft says he looks for an animal with confidence, drive, energy, and the focus needed for the training and the job. Croft says to date Universal K9 has saved and placed hundreds of fully trained dogs with law enforcement agencies. "Our program is like no other and we produce more dogs and handlers per month (civilian side) than any other company profit or non-profit I know of," says Brad Croft, Universal K9's founder and operations director. But that's just one aspect of the company's mission. Universal K9 ( has been training shelter dogs to serve in law enforcement since 2010. There are now organizations that are funding the training of shelter dogs for police work or training and placing dogs with agencies. And recently, a number of law enforcement agencies have decided to expand their K-9 ranks to include some unusual breeds and mixed breed dogs from shelters and dog rescues.
It's not unusual to see a wide range of dogs-including bloodhounds used for tracking and cadaver recovery and Labrador retrievers and beagles used to sniff out explosives and illegal narcotics-working alongside police officers. But that doesn't mean that other varieties of man's best friend can't be police dogs.
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