Parades, Auburn football gamedays, missing person searches and bomb threats. These are all areas where the Auburn Police Department's K9s play a vital role in protecting the local community. But what does it take to become an APD K9?
The City of Auburn reports that on game days at Jordan-Hare Stadium, an elite team of Auburn Police officers can smell people coming from a mile away. Game days require hundreds of law enforcement officers to keep our community and visitors safe. This also includes team of trained sniffers.
Ikia, Jet, Kenzie, Leon, Max, Mia, Spectrum and Underdog report to work just like their handlers. The City of Auburn reports that just like their handlers, they go through intensive training before they can report for duty. Ranging from nine years of service to just a few months on the job, the Auburn Police Department’s K9s are said to be one of the most valuable tools for officers have.
Most of the department's K9s come to the job with their innate smelling-skills honed to detect and react a certain way to certain odors. Four narcotics K9s are trained to locate about eight odors, such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, and double as search and rescue dogs that help locate missing people or suspects on the run.
The other four K9s are trained to identify around 15 different odors related to explosives. The department’s explosives K9s regularly work large-scale events and respond to bomb threats, sweeping venues and buildings to search for potential threats. They’ve assisted with inaugurations of governors, presidential visits, city events, parades and Auburn University sporting events.
The K9s as a unit at least every other week, and most handlers do additional one-on-one training with their K9s. This is all done to ensure they’re prepared when they’re called upon.
While the narcotics K9s for the police department came from different kennels across the Southeast, the department’s explosives K9s were all bred and trained through Auburn University’s Canine Performance Sciences program.
Thanks to gifts from the community, the city reports that the Auburn Police Department has been able to expand the K9 unit in recent years. In 2022, they were able to station two K9s at Auburn High School and Auburn Junior High School full time. When the students are there, so are Jet and Underdog protecting them from potential risks.
The K9s have also gained a good reputation across the region and are called on by state, federal and local law enforcement agencies and partners to assist with public safety efforts, according to the city.
More information on the Auburn Police Department’s K9s can be found here.
