K-9 Officer Career Paper

Everyone has seen a adorable, smart, and brave german shepherd with the guy in the uniform. But do people ever question “why their bond is so amazing and what they do on a daily basis?”...well we are about to find out. I researched the life of a K-9 officer and also interviewed Shawn Diedrich, who is a K-9 officer at the city of Muskego. I have learned many different aspects of the criminal justice system and how they work.

A lot of different people have important careers within the Criminal Justice System, but in particular a K-9 officer and of course his/her dog is one of the most important aspects of criminal justice. After all, many K-9 officers say “it's worth it” because they generally have a lot of experience in law enforcement, but

Many officers use their dogs to “find and bite” which holds a suspect down, and allows the officer to catch many criminals. Another example, is K-9 police dogs may do on duty is uses their scent to sniff out illegal substances, these dogs are known as scent dogs. Usually, each dog does one of these three areas of crime and is trained in one specific area alongside their officer. K-9 officers typically start their careers as police officers, and then begin to work their way up in the field. Alongside training, K-9 officers also have to complete requisite police academy training plus one to two years of patrol experience before becoming eligible to transfer to a specialty K9 unit. Officers and canine go through many specialize training and specialize in detection of explosives, electronic devices, narcotics, corpses and other illegal substances. They also have to train in many different patrol protocols such as, call for backup, how to release canine, track criminal suspects, exchange a leash for weapon, and bringing their dog to heel after suspect. This specific enforcement training is intensive and requires a lot of time for both the officer and canine. It's important that the officer and canine build trust, confidence and strong relationship in order to be an effective unit. My interviewee Shawn, describes many of these same aspects as he is a K-9

Shawn has been in the law enforcement field for about seventeen years and he has came across all types of criminals. Shawn also got interested in his career during a constitutional law class. In fact, he later prepared for his job by getting a criminal justice degree from UW Eau Claire. During college, Shawn balanced sports, school and took jobs doing security and dispatching to start getting experienced and building a resume. After college he got hired at the Muskego Police Department and became a police officer then later trained for K-9 and SWAT. He explained that his job duties now are patrol and K-9 based, and he specializes in many different types of K-9 searches. For an example, Shawn has to do all patrols call for service, traffic, ambo and fire calls, with these he does K-9 tracking of narcotics detection and criminal apprehension. When shawn is not on call, he has K-9 training and documentation, and all training must be well documented. He stated it is important for training to documented because if cases go to court, it can be used as the dogs training records. This is also a way of proof that the canine has been trained and obeys properly and this may happen quite often. On a typical day, Shawn spends about an hour at home training which includes feeding and playing with the dog, At work, they then begin to drive around looking for suspects