Nero sat patiently at Monday's Police Advisory Board meeting.

K-9 Officer James Parise presented to the Police Advisory Board on Monday about the dog's usage and value.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It not only costs less to train a police K-9 than a police officer, but the dogs can do the job of five men at times.

The Police Advisory continued their briefings on the various departments within the department on Monday when they heard from Officer James Parise and K-9 Nero.

Parise explained how the dogs are trained, what they are used for and how important they can be for enforcement.

"The handler, department and community decides how they'll be trained," Parise said.

The Pittsfield Police Department has three K-9 units that are trained to track down suspects and to sniff out drugs. However, Pittsfield's canines do not track as well as bloodhounds nor can they be used to detect bombs.

Pittsfield's K-9s are trained with the use of toys, Parise said. Trainers wrap the smell of what the dog needs to find in a toy and then they are sent off to find it. Nearly any type of dog can be trained for tracking, Parise said.

Bomb dogs are trained by food, according to Parise, and they need to "find" a bomb or device every day with the reward being food. Drug dogs can't be trained that way because the searches are often in homes and the dogs would seek out food instead.

Police Chief Michael Wynn said he would like a bomb dog to be available to agencies in the county. Local agencies have access to state police bomb dogs but often large events are held across the state that utilize the dogs, Wynn said.

Parise showed off Nero by having her perform some commands for the board.

"With all of the stuff going on recently, my interest is in a bomb dog," Wynn said.

But the city doesn't have the need for the dogs as often as needed so Wynn suggested the department work with other agencies to have a unit for the entire Western Massachusetts region.

The agencies will have to sort out who pays for training, who employees the handler and the continual costs of veterinary service and food.

The units the department has now save the department money. Parise said "frequently" the dogs are able to track a suspect from the scene of the crime and thus saving the time to have a multi-day investigation.

Additionally, the dogs can used in place of several officers on occasions such as controlling the perimeter of a building a suspect is in.

In those situations, Wynn said a dog is worth three officers because a suspect can't outrun a dog. The K-9 units secure the perimeter while the officers are deployed inside of the building.

At the jail, Sheriff Thomas Bowler said he'll use dogs when moving an inmate from one area to another. On those occasion, the dog does the job of five officers who would have to be placed along the corridor the inmate is being escorted.

Wynn added that it costs an estimated $6,000 and about 12 weeks to add a K-9 to the force, significantly lower than an officer.

Moving forward, Parise said drug dogs will not be trained to sniff out marijuana because of the passage of medical marijuana. The dogs cannot be trained to sniff out legal drugs because then any evidence found would be illegally obtained. The dogs are used in many vehicle stops, he said.

Parise also said more and more communities are hiring K-9 units so he isn't called to help other towns as much anymore. When he is called out, those towns are not charged for the time as part of the mutual aid agreement.

The area K-9 units train weekly together, he said.

• Most Read

• Most Comments

• All News

• Blogroll

• Photos