Lowndes County’s K-9 unit brings home awards
Published 9:30 am Thursday, April 14, 2022
- Terry Richards | The Valdosta Daily TimesLowndes County Sheriff's Office K-9 dogs Bella, left and Hyde pose with the human members of the K-9 Unit and Sheriff Ashley Paulk Wednesday at the Lowndes County Jail Complex. The unit brought home trophies in recent K-9 unit field trials.
VALDOSTA — The Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office recently brought home awards in a K-9 unit certification event.
From March 13-18, the Lowndes County Sheriff’s K-9 Unit participated in the United States Police Canine Association field trials, hosted by the Santa Rosa County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office, according to a statement from the Lowndes sheriff’s office.
Trials included handlers from Florida, Alabama and Georgia. Handlers must complete this yearly certification in order to qualify to work the streets with their K-9 partner. The certification is a measure of each K-9 team’s ability in narcotics detection and what the organization refers to as PD1, which encompasses criminal apprehension, obedience, criminal search work (articles and suspect location) and agility. During this certification, K-9 teams must obtain a minimum score to pass; competitors are also ranked on how well they complete each task.
Lowndes County’s K-9 unit brought home several awards from the event. In the narcotics division, Lowndes County took top place in departmental teams.
Sgt. Jarod Davis (K-9 Bella) and Deputy Justin Tucker (K-9 Hyde) took first place. Deputy Alvin Parker (K-9 Duncan), along with Deputy Joe Suhr (K-9 Ghost), placed second. Individually narcotics detection Davis and Bella placed fourth in the indoor narcotics search and seventh place overall. Tucker and Hyde placed first in the indoor narcotics search and fourth place overall.
Parker and Duncan placed third in the indoor narcotics search, fifth in the vehicle narcotics search and second place overall. Lt. Herb Bennett (K-9 Thanos) placed second in the vehicle narcotics search and first place overall.
In PD1, Tucker and Hyde placed fifth in criminal search and placed 12th overall for PD1. Parker and Duncan placed 10th overall in PD1. Bennett and Thanos placed second in obedience, fourth place in agility, first place in criminal search and second place overall in PD1. Bennett and Thanos were named the top dual-purpose K-9, which is the total score of combined narcotics detection and PD1.
