New K9 Cops Take Final Exams

By Grayson Kamm First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- As dog days go, this is a big one. Thursday, Blitz and eight other police service dogs faced their final exams.

Responding to a single command quietly spoken in German, Blitz raced across an open field toward a broken-down car and a man jogging next to it. The sleek German Shepherd bounded upward and clenched his jaws around the man's arm.

The man struggled against the dog's pull, lunging backward through an open door into the car's back seat. Blitz didn't let up. Grrrring and tugging, Blitz stayed singly focused on stopping that man in his tracks.

"Good boy!" an encouraging voice cooed. With another command, Blitz released his grip on the man's heavily padded arm. The exercise was over. Blitz and his partner Deputy Nicole McGuire are ready for the street.

"This is actually the last week, when we expose these dogs to what they're going to face on the street," explained Jacksonville Sheriff's Officer Chuck Bridgeman.

He and his training teammate Officer Blair Twigg have been at this for more than six months. In little puppy steps, they've trained these dogs and -- just as importantly -- their human partners to work as total teams.

"This is a huge accomplishment for me. This course was extremely physically and mentally challenging," said McGuire, a St. Johns County Sheriff's Deputy, and one of eight out-of-town officers here to train in JSO's renowned program.

"It's nothing less than intense. We are here four days a week, ten hours a day. It's crazy," McGuire said.

Each of these dogs is actually trained in two specialties. One is patrol work, including sniffing out suspects and taking them down. But the dogs also all "detect."

Some hunt down narcotics, others find explosives. And they all do it very well. It takes a team of just four K9 units only four hours to search all of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium on gameday.

And when you watch those tails wag as they tug on a simulated suspect in a padded training suit, you can tell that just like the humans, the dogs love this work.

It will be another year until the young service animals will be considered true veterans. But this new breed of officers will hit the streets to start serving next week.

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