The Daviess County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit tested and showed off their skills Monday morning on the Ohio River, where they simulated an aquatics detainment and narcotics search on a boat.
K-9 units in the region perform drills every other Monday, rotating among the agencies. DCSO K-9 Deputy Russ Day said he wanted to provide the dogs with something that they have not gotten the chance to do very often, if ever.
One part of the drill had the dogs trying to find five different drugs hidden throughout a boat. The other part had the dogs jump out of a rescue boat and swim approximately 10 yards to perform a takedown on a decoy.
“We have a few dogs who haven’t ever done it. One of the Owensboro Police Department dogs has never been on a boat and jumped in the water like that. So we just tried to present different training scenarios to them,” Day said.
The training brought in K-9s from DCSO and OPD, as well as Madisonville, Hopkins County, and Sturgis police departments. In total, 7 dogs participated in the training.
Day said that the tugboats had different types of floors, narrow steps and overall layouts which each dog had to navigate.
OPD K-9 Fado has experience in narcotic detection, but he hasn’t had much experience when it comes to aquatic scenarios.
Fado’s handler Steven Phillips said that he got Fado in the K-9 unit when the dog was 11 months old. Now at 6 years old, Fado has biweekly training in almost all of the disciplines.
“We do a lot of vehicle narcotics, street crimes, and we would have undercover narcotics guys come out and do stuff like that,” Phillips said. “But he’s never done narcotics detection on aquatic.”
And even though this was his first time, he still performed well, according to Day.
“All the dogs performed outstanding. The tugboat really puts them into a different atmosphere and a different arena,” Day said. “…So it produced some challenges for them and all of them performed really well.”
