A combined competition and certification event has resulted in honors for two peace officers from central Iowa. Polk County Sheriff’s Department narcotics Detective Dennis George, and his K9 partner, Echo, recently took part in the United States Police Canine Association’s (USPCA) Annual Narcotics Certification and Competition and came home with top awards. Detective George has been a K-9 handler for fourteen years now and has no complaints about having a dog for a partner. They’re loyal, he says, and they try as hard as they can to please their handler. He says it’s also amazing to watch them do “dope work.” He rescued Echo from the pound barely two years ago, and trained her himself. The main thing he teaches Echo to search for are the drugs most often found in Iowa — marijuana and hash, cocaine, crack, methamphetamine, “ice,” heroine and ecstasy. The USPCA is the largest police K-9 association in the country, and through this association certifications and accomplishments are achieved and recognized. George explains why this is more than a pet show, and more important than just obedience training. Part of the association’s responsibility is to certify those K-9 officers, so when they’re involved in a case that goes to court, the legal system has some confidence the dog’s doing what it’s been trained to do. The region this team competes in includes all of Iowa and parts of Nebraska and South Dakota. Once a year they go to a national certification that includes all the regions across the country. It gets them national certification, as well as letting the dogs compete in games that are “kind of a fun thing to do.” The Iowa team went to the event in Canton, Mississippi, to claim that certification as well as collect recognition for a sixteen-Million-dollar drug bust that the dog “Echo” helped bring down. Competing with about a hundred K-9 teams from across the country, Echo won national case of the year, third place overall, second place in team work, and fourth place overall in room searches
