Police K9 Awareness Day
The City of Lebanon, NH is hosting an event this Saturday,May 19th to raise awareness and funds for local K9 teams. Check out the flyer here
What's new?
Make March 13th K-9 Veterans Day
Do our four-legged comrades deserve recognition? Go here to read more.
Add the following dates to your calendar!
The annual VPCA golf tournament is Friday, August 10th.
Iron Dog will be back at Camp Dudley at Kinya on Saturday, September 8th.
The VPCA will once again be at the Shelburne Museum Goes to the Dogs event on Sunday, September 16th.
Hope to see you all there!
Check back here for additional details.
2011 K9 Program Highlights
2011 K9 Awards
K9 Awards 2011 Link
K9 Demo
By Martha Slater
The Rochester E.X.C.E.L. afterschool program had a visit Monday from Vermont State Police Officer Bob Giolito and his canine partner, Officer Mitch. The kids, who have been studying wilderness survival, learned from Officers Giolito and Mitch how the police find missing persons using a combination of human tracking skills and the superior smelling power of the canine unit. (Herald / Tim Calabro) Many of the students in the ExCel after-school program at Rochester Elementary School were wiggling in their chairs with excitement Monday afternoon when Vermont State Trooper Bob Giolito and his K-9 unit partner, a German Shepherd named Mitch, visited the school with U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer Mike Klingensmith. Klingensmith, who is stationed at the Green Mountain Forest Service office in Rochester, and also lives in town with his family, often works with Trooper Giolito and Mitch on search operations, and arranged for them to visit the school.
The students, who have been working on a unit about outdoor survival in cold weather, had lots of good questions for Trooper Giolito.
“What if more than one person gets lost?” they wanted to know.
He explained that Mitch can pick up and distinguish the scent of specific people, out of all the smells around him.
Asked if Mitch ever got lost, Giolito said that had actually happened the very first day he got him seven years ago.
“We hadn’t bonded yet, and when he got out of the car at my house, he dashed away after a deer. An hour later, I found him back in my yard.”
The two soon became a team, and Mitch makes his home with Giolito, who demonstrated many of the commands he uses to communicate with him, including saying “plotz,” the German word for sit, to get him to do so.
Ready to play the role of a “lost” person, so the kids could see the team in action, Klingensmith went outside to hide in the fields behind the school. Ten minutes later, the sun was setting behind the mountains across the river, when everyone headed out to find him.
Student Daron Gendron, who had been assigned the role of group leader, held an article of Klingensmith’s clothing for Mitch to sniff. Giolito and the dog headed across the field as Mitch had his nose to the ground, hot on the trail. Within a few minutes, Klingensmith was discovered at the far end of the field, hiding behind a large pile of dirt and rocks. Following the successful “rescue operation,” Giolito asked Gendron to recap the steps the team went through to find someone.
Giolito later explained that he and Mitch also do other types of work together, in addition to searching for people who are lost or for criminals who are hiding from authorities. The state police K-9 teams are tested once a year for their drugdetection skills and can distinguish between the smells of seven different kinds of narcotics.
This is the first K-9 dog Giolito has been paired with, and it was clear from watching them that they make a good team.
HITS 2011
The 5th Annual HITS National K9 Training Conference was held in July in Washington,D.C. The VPCA provided assistance for our members to attend the conference. HITS 2011 included over 40 different vendors, showcasing the most high tech and reliable K-9 gear and related products in the world.
Four Paws for Lacey’s Cause 2011 5k Race Results
Thank you to all the participants of this year’s Four Paws for Lacey’s Cause event. With over 50 participants in the 5k and fun run combined and thanks to your generosity, we raised over $1100 for Vermont’s retired police dogs through Lacey’s Fund.
Congratulations to all of our 5k runners! Check out photos from the race on VVSC’s
Facebook page.
Race results for the 5k can be found here.
2011 Iron Dog Photos
Kelly Schulze of Mountain Dog Photography has pictures of this years Iron Dog participants for sale via her online gallery here.
Chris R. White Photography also has a slideshow of photos here.
Thanks to Kelly and Chris for enduring the weather along with this years runners!
VPCA Canopy
Keep a look out for the new VPCA canopy during the next few months at events around the state. We look forward to seeing you at Shelburne Museum Goes to the Dogs on Sunday, September 18 and at Iron Dog on Saturday, October 1!