Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

While Alaska police-canine handlers vouched for their dogs’ ability to act as a deterrent and assist with illegal drug seizures, their endorsement comes with a warning: if you own a police dog, don’t leave your dirty laundry lying around.

The Haines Borough Assembly voted unanimously last week to direct borough manager Debra Schnabel to “research and report on the true cost and operation” of a police dog after a group of concerned citizens submitted a petition signed by more than 100 residents.

The petition came with a 13-page report prepared by Haines Police sergeant Josh Dryden outlining the benefits and costs of a drug-sniffing search and rescue dog. The borough assembly voted against such research in May, which prompted residents to circulate the petition.

Petition organizer JoAnn Ross Cunningham told the CVN earlier this month that one or more private donors have volunteered to cover the costs of buying a dog, which includes retrofitting a police vehicle for a canine.

An untrained dog costs $6,000-$9,000, according to Dryden’s report. The vehicle alteration would cost $4,000 to $6,000. Taxpayers would contribute about $1,500 in food and vet costs annually, Dryden said. Federal law requires departments to pay handlers for the extra time spent taking care of the dog. In his proposal, Dryden said the borough could pay a handler an extra 30 minutes for the increased work with the dog, that would translate to an annual cost of $1,500 at $30 an hour, or let the handler leave work 30 minutes early.

Anchorage police sergeant Marc Patzke oversees the department’s canine unit. He said the municipality pays its handlers an extra half-hour of overtime each day. “Overtime is one mechanism,” Patzke said. “A lot of departments will let the officers go home half an hour early every day. It doesn’t have to be an additional cost or overtime.”

He said his department budgeted less than $30,000 this fiscal year for their seven dogs. But, like owning a vehicle, maintenance costs for their animals arise unexpectedly. “One of our knuckleheads last week ate a hand warmer,” Patzke said. “The lead in a hand warmer is toxic so we had to take him to the pet ER. I’ve got one dog that loves to eat socks. It’s like a car. Cars break down and you have to spend money if you want to keep it.”

Officer Justin Tim was a canine handler for four years in Nome. He said unexpected visits to the vet and other hidden costs are common. “I lost my first dog because she ate a piece of sweater and had to be flown to Anchorage and she didn’t make it,” Tim said. “My last canine had two surgeries because he ate a sock.”

Tim said he paid for a portion of those vet bills out of pocket, because he didn’t want taxpayers to have to pay.

Delta Junction city administrator Mary Leith said in the early 1980s, the city purchased a dog. The dog didn’t eat any clothes, but it did devour a costly snack. “The dog chewed up the inside of the police car,” Leith said. “It didn’t take long before the council decided they didn’t need that.”

If the borough assembly agrees to the petitioners’ request, the Haines Police Department would be one of several agencies where the public has privately funded canines for their municipal departments.

Anchorage’s Dollars for Dogs, a non-profit that started in 1976, has purchased many canines for the Anchorage Police Department. “We enjoy doing this very much,” said Dollars for Dogs treasurer Marshall Johnson. “We pay for everything for the police department, their training, their equipment. That usually runs us between $23,000 and $24,000.”

Anchorage has seven dogs in their department, Johnson said, all of which have been paid for by Dollars for Dogs which receives between $60,000 to $100,000 in donations annually.

The Wasilla police department crowd funded their police dog, said public information officer Amanda Graham. Residents donated half of the $60,000 to fund the department’s dog, Echo.

Another consideration when a department owns a police dog is providing a consistent handler, Tim said. Tim, who owned his dog, left Nome to work in Wisconsin and brought the dog with him. Nome police no longer have a dog. “The handler is the biggest key,” Tim said. “The handler can make or break something. Nome was going to have another handler, but he did not work out. It’s very difficult to switch handlers. This is a specialty breed and a specialty dog that just can’t just be with anybody.”

Patzke said the handler is important, but it’s not uncommon for a dog live with different handlers throughout its life.

Despite the risk to the municipality’s and the handler’s wallet, Patzke and Tim said the benefits of having a dog in the department are invaluable. They said just having the dog acts as a deterrent to drug importation.

“If you just sit there and put your dog at the airport, even if you had nothing coming in that was important, just looking for behavior change, you could easily change the way in which they’re importing their drugs into the community and that change can result in more arrests,” Patzke said.

At last week’s meeting, assembly member Sean Maidy chastised the assembly for its earlier opposition to finding out more information. “I voted for the information to begin with even though I’ve been fairly on and off, mostly opposed, about the police dog in general, but I never believed for even a second that less information is better,” Maidy said. “I hope we all vote on this unanimously for the sake of more information.”

Assembly member Tom Morphet, who in May voted against learning more about a drug dog, reversed his decision. “I was in a group of 100 people two weeks ago in Sea-Tac that got sniffed down by a dog and I’ll tell ya, it was a dehumanizing, demeaning experience, but sure, let’s get the information,” Morphet said.