By Mary O’KEEFE

The Glendale Police K9 Unit stopped by Valley View Elementary School recently to visit students in the classes of Karla Bringas and Lisa Jenks.

Sgt. Shawn Sholtis has been a supervisor handler for 12 years. He, along with Officers Eric Meyer, his dog Jeff, Officer Kyle Heinbechner and his dog Idol, and Matt Wilson and his dog Duke, the unit held the attention of the third and second graders as they showed how they work together in investigations.

Each dog specialized in a specific area locating drugs, firearms and explosives. The dogs are able to sniff their way through an investigation.

Jeff is a Belgian Malinois, Duke is a Malherder – part Belgian Malinois and German shepherd and Idol is a German shepherd.

The dogs are all from different areas and are trained in different languages. All officers told the students they take their dogs home with them. In the case of Officer Meyers, who has pet dogs at home, he makes certain to keep Jeff separate from his other dogs. When Duke goes home with Officer Wilson, he plays with his family dog. It depends, Wilson said, on the dog and how they mix with others.

“Their noses are strong,” Meyers said.

The average person has 5 million smell receptors, the average dog – depending on the breed – has about 125 to 250 million smell receptors.

The dogs, Sholtis said, serve about nine years on average.

“When they retire most handlers will keep their dogs…and they become a pet at home,” he added.

The kids were just excited to see the dogs, hear them bark and find out what K9 officers do.

  Mary Okeefe