The City of Baldwin’s recent addition of a K-9 unit in March has the police department looking forward to the unofficial police dog, Nikos, going on duty.
Proud handler of Nikos, Assistant Police Chief Justin Ferguson, has been working on developing the narcotics skills required for the Belgian Malinois to be considered for the high-risk police dog job.
Ferguson said narcotics training is only the first step.
“We will continue to train heavily on narcotics detection over the next several weeks and then look at setting up a certification date with an appropriate agency,” Ferguson said. “Once Nikos is certified in narcotics detection, we will begin training for his secondary roles: human tracking, apprehension, officer protection, etc.”
Nikos has already made progress according to Ferguson. “Nikos’ training has progressed well over the last few weeks and has proven he has the drive to be a police working dog. We are concentrating mostly on narcotics detection since that will be his primary function. We have introduced some officer protection aspects of training to him, but we remain heavily focused on narcotics,” Ferguson said.
Being in the ownership of the city, Nikos was given a clean bill of health from Cornerstone Animal Hospital upon, Ferguson noted that Nikos is additionally physically in the right health for the position.
Looking to the future of the unit, Ferguson thanked the community for their support through the building of the K-9 program noting it is essential to their agency’s growth. “We have received donations from Steelcell of America, Locke Arnold, City of Snellville Police Department, Georgia Police K9 Foundation, and Kenneth and Fran Franklin and could not be more appreciative of their support in helping us reach this goal to better serve the citizens and visitors of Baldwin,” Ferguson said.