Putting the Kane in K-9
<p>Coeur d’Alene Police officer Amy Winstead and the department’s new apprehension dog, a German shepphard named Kane.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Running and hiding from the Coeur d'Alene Police Department is now way beyond ill-advised.
The department on Tuesday introduced its new - and only - "apprehension dog," a 3-year-old German shepherd named Kane.
"Kane is a locating tool," said officer Amy Winstead, Kane's handler. "He primarily uses his nose to find things, follow persons, tracks evidence and find articles that get thrown at a crime scene."
Winstead has only had her new partner for a week. They're bonding now.
"He's very vocal (whining)," she said. "He came from the Netherlands. He speaks Dutch, but he's a German shepherd. ... He's got some very big ears that he seems to be growing into."
Kane will be trained to find drugs, too. The police department already has one drug dog, Max, another German shepherd.
"It's one of those few less-lethal options that we have available to us," said Sgt. Brett Walton, who supervises the K-9 unit.
Walton said a K-9 unit is "force multiplier."
"I would take two, three, maybe four officers to clear a large building, say the size of Black Sheep (Sporting Goods)," Walton said. "Where we can have a handler and another person go in with a dog and they can clear that building at a speed we couldn't even fathom, and make sure it's done correctly."
Capt. Steve Childers said the dog cost just less than $10,000. There are additional expenses for equipment and a vehicle for Kane and Winstead.
Money from asset forfeitures associated with drug crimes covers some of the cost.
The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office will be providing more than 400 hours of training for Kane.
Other agencies in the area, including Post Falls Police and the KCSO, have shared their apprehension dogs, but the city needed one of its own, Childers said.
"Our call volume is quite a bit higher than either one of those agencies," said Childers. "Just the volume of calls that we have that a K-9 like Kane could be utilized on is over 100 times greater than what you see from Post Falls, (and) 40-some percent greater than what you see from Kootenai County."