K9 team look for challenges to prepare dogs for all scenarios

Some of the most visible and the most admired officers of the Sioux City Police Department are the K9s. Dynamic and hardworking, the K9s and their handlers train hard so that the dogs are ready for their assigned tasks. This training is year-round and covers several areas, such as obedience, searching and tracking.

Sgt. Jake Noltze and K9 Odin work on obedience during training.

The handlers of the K9’s train as a team once a week for four hours. This is in addition to the daily training that each handler conducts with their dogs. With winter upon us, the K9 team has been conducting their training in-doors.

“The training consists of building searches for a suspect, narcotics searches, on and off leash obedience, aggression control, small team tactics, k9 first aid, and scenario-based drills,” said Sgt. Jake Noltze who leads the K9 team.

Recently, the team was training in a local elementary school as temperatures outside were well below freezing.

“Winter time is best suited to train in-doors due to weather conditions,” explained Noltze. “Since K9s are required to deploy into new environments every day, it is important to change up the training venue for the dogs to generalize their highly specialized skills.”

Each new building the K9 encounters presents new challenges for the dogs. Exposing the dogs to new buildings helps develop confidence and helps the dogs adjust quickly to its surroundings.

K9 Auroa indicates to her handler, Officer Mike Simons, that she has found drugs.

When we use the same training area repeatedly, the dogs get used to it and learn where people or things can hide,” added Noltze.

Currently, the Sioux City Police Department has four dogs in its K9 program. Two of the K9s are on the afternoon shift and two are on the night shift. The department assigns the dogs to these shifts as they have the highest rates of drug arrests and suspect apprehension.

The K9s are a ‘dual-purpose’ dog meaning that they not only search for and apprehend suspects but can also track and search for items. During winter training, the team will practice searching for burglary suspects or looking for contraband. During 2019, the K9 conducted 45 building searches. During those searches, eleven burglary suspects were apprehended by the team.

“The dogs ability to smell where suspects are, and then their very presence greatly improves safety for officers,” said Noltze.

Part of the challenge for the team is finding new venues to host their training.

“We’re grateful for the access we’ve had from the schools and a few local businesses, but we are always looking for new places to train,” said Noltze.

If you are interested in making your building or business available for K9 training, please contact Sgt. Jake Noltze at jnoltze@sioux-city.org.

The Sioux City K9 team use different buildings to prepare the dogs for the challenge of new environments.