IRON MOUNTAIN, Mich. (WZMQ) – There are two police K9s that are taking a bite out of crime in Dickinson County, and they also do community service as youth mentors.
There is Falcon, who might have been spotted floating around Iron Mountain’s City Hall on a Christmas card this past December.
Falcon is a Belgian Malinois who serves the Iron Mountain Police Department with his handler, Sergeant Adam Ray.
“He’s a dual-purpose K9, trained in narcotics detection, tracking, and handler protection,” said Sergeant Ray, who has been Falcon’s handler for six years.
Falcon is at the ready to respond to police calls for his K9 duties in the area. He frequently does drills that flex his keen K9 senses and protective abilities, and Falcon has another job, according to Sergeant Ray.
“A typical day for Falcon during the school year, as I am also the school resource officer for the Iron Mountain School District, we kinda hang out at the school. We do programs for kids within the school. The kids love Falcon.”
Sergeant Ray isn’t the only K9 handler in Dickinson County that does youth programming.
Trooper Ryan Rossler, of Iron Mountain’s Michigan State Police Post said that his dog, Nikko also does youth mentorship for K-12 children at schools in the surrounding area, even with Nikko’s busy police duties.
Nikko is also a dual-purpose patrol dog, trained in both narcotics detection and tracking. Nikko is a 7-year-old German Shepherd all the way from Hungary, and this K9 comes with a big job description.
“It’s a typical day working law enforcement, until the need arises for a K9, and then we would divert from whatever we’re doing and go take care of that K9 call, whether it be a tracking situation like a missing person, a missing child, someone with dementia that walks away from a home, or a suspect that fled from another officer. We’ll step in and do what we need to do to locate that person,” Trooper Rossler commented.
“Or it could be related to drugs, it could be a vehicle sniff where another officer has a traffic stop and there are indicators that lead them to believe that there’s controlled substances in the vehicle. We can use Nikko to sniff the vehicle and let us know if there is in fact something in there,” Trooper Rossler added.
Even though Nikko stays busy, he has plans to visit Norway-Vulcan School District this year for a career day, but until then he will be sniffing out justice for his community.
