Last night, in another installment of 5th District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske’s “Open Up Long Beach” program, the public had the chance to see the inner workings of the Long Beach Police Department’s Police Service Dog Unit (PSDU).
“We’re trying to be as transparent as possible,” said Schipske, whose program has provided inside looks at Long Beach’s emergency dispatch center and the Aquarium of the Pacific and will be visiting the Long Beach Airport next month. “The more the people know, the more apt they are to participate.”
Attendees at last night’s demonstration were given a tour of the northeast Long Beach PSDU training facilities by Dan Kachel, President of the Long Beach K-9 Officers Association. The non-profit association has been raising money for the PSDU for 28 years, and has come a long way since the early days, before “bite suits,” when dog trainers would wrap their arms and legs in newspapers to avoid bite damage.
The Association provides most of the funding for the dogs–which cost around $12,000 apiece–and their state-of-the-art gear, which includes bullet-proof vests and shoulder-mounted cameras. The K-9 Officers Association and the LBPD save huge amounts of money by doing the K-9 training “in-house.”
K-9 duties fall into three categories; patrol, narcotics detection and explosives and firearms detection. Some dogs are cross-trained to perform more than one of these disciplines. They’re on call 24/7, prepared to search for dangerous fugitives in pitch-dark rooms or get lowered by rope into container ships during 15-foot seas.
“A K-9 is the only force a police officer can deploy, then call off, unlike a taser or a bullet,” says Officer Ernie Wolosewicz, an LBPD veteran who trains all of the PSDU’s patrol and detection dogs. All PSDU dogs live with their handlers: Wolosewicz has two dogs, Kasia and Kasik.
The K-9 memorial at Long Beach Police Officers Association Park includes four dogs killed in the line of duty. Photos by Matt Cohn.
According to Wolosewicz, dogs see their human family as a pack, and will assert their position within it, so it’s very important that the family knows not to take things from the dog or attempt to force things on it. The dogs are treated as pets to a certain extent, but the relationship between dog and handler is primarily a working one.
Wolosewicz, like all PSDU officers, paid the first $3000 toward the cost of his first dog. He has worked with scores of dogs over the years and has developed a keen sense of the attributes that an effective K-9 possesses. Drive, nerve, agility and sociability are assessed carefully in the selection of a new K-9 and are constantly reevaluated during a dog’s career. Most of the LBPD’s dogs are Belgian Malinois from Holland, where police-dog training is a popular sport.
“We do learn Dutch commands,” says Wolosewicz, “but after a while it doesn’t matter what you say: It’s mainly the sound of the voice, and the body language.”
Officer Wolosewicz was set to continue his demonstration, but had to cut it short: he, Kasia, and Kasik were called away to do a perimeter search for a fugitive parolee.
Top photo: Long Beach K-9 Officers Association President Dan Kachel (L) with LBPD Officer Ernie Wolosewicz and Kasia.
Visit the Long Beach K-9 Officers Association on Facebook or visit their website at LBK9oa.org
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