Police canines throughout United States are used almost the same and follow the same guidelines.  The canines are there to assist their handlers, detectives and other officers in locating suspects, missing persons, narcotics/explosive and evidence.

At times the canines are used to stop a fleeing suspect by physically apprehending a suspect that may have escaped capture if the canine was not available.

The canine handler must consider the totality of the circumstances along with the severity of the crime committed by the suspect and whether the suspect is actively trying to evade arrest when making a decision of whether to apprehend a suspect with their canine.

The Sheriff’s Office K-9 Unit makes every attempt to take a suspect into custody without a bite from the canine.  There are times that we are faced with violent suspects whose number one goal is to avoid arrest at all costs.

The canine unit has hundreds of canine deployments annually.  A deployment is considered a use of the canine on an area search, building search, track, missing person search, article search, narcotic search, explosive search or any other use.  Each Police Service Dog can save 800 to 1,000 man hours per year.

The deployments result in an average of 200 arrests a year for the canine unit.  However, most incidents are resolved peacefully with a very small portion of the apprehensions resulting in the canine biting the suspect.