The newest member of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office has big shoes to fill. Four of them, to be exact.
Not only will the K-9 be tasked with sniffing out drugs. But he’s also been trained to locate the synthetic ones, like the synthetic marijuana that contributed to the death of a 14-year-old Bremen boy on March 10, 2012.
After the death of Dakota Blaze Dyer, his father vowed he would never stop fighting to get drugs off the streets. Within months of Dakota's death, Lance Dyer helped set up pill collection boxes, getting thousands of pills off the streets and out of the wrong hands.
That fight continued Monday, when a new K-9 was flown to Atlanta and then driven to Douglas County, where he will join the other dogs at the sheriff’s office. Police dogs have long been used in drug investigations. But the newest K-9, named Dakota, has been trained by a Maryland-based company called ScentLogix.
K-9 Dakota will be used exclusively in Douglas County schools to find drugs and educate children, the sheriff’s office said. Dakota was greeted by deputies, elected officials and other community leaders when he arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Dakota will join five other dogs already employed by the sheriff’s office.
“Dakota may be small, but something tells me he will run with the big dogs just fine,” Lance Dyer posted on his Facebook page. “Good hunting and get hits, Dakota.”
Dakota is the first of three dogs trained to sniff out synthetic drugs that will join the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, Dyer said. An online fundraising website has been created for those wishing to assist with the cost of purchasing the trained dogs.
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