Sniffing out crime

There are four new paws to help enforce laws in town with the addition of Creston Police Department’s new police K-9 Olga.

Following the retirement of K-9 Baxo last year, the CPD was left without a dog in uniform to assist in drug arrests and scent detection. Creston Police Officer Caleb Humburg knew this was his chance to get a K-9 of his own.

“I’ve kind of always wanted to get one,” Humburg said. “The dog we had was starting to get up in age for quite a while, so then Baxo was retired, and that’s when the process of getting Olga started.”

Humburg’s want of a police dog stems largely from his brother’s experience. Deputy Ryan Humburg and his K-9 Nikos in South Carolina have bonded over various situations, including one that involved Nikos being shot in the line of duty, a situation Nikos survived while also catching the suspect. The two were awarded the medal of valor for their actions that day.

While there are many different organizations in the Midwest that train and certify canines for law enforcement, CPD chose Canine Deployed of Lafayette, Indiana.

“They have a lot of dogs on their agency. I just really liked what I saw with [owner Josh Brainard’s] videos and how his training methodology works,” Humburg said. “With talking to him and interviewing him over the phone, we went with that decision to go with him.”

Humburg spent three weeks in Indiana undergoing handler training and bonding with Olga. However, her training started far before that. Though only one and half years old, this Belgian Malinois has been training her whole life to be a police dog. She was even bred for it.

“Typically out of litters, if you have eight puppies or so, you might get two or three of them that turn out to be police dogs,” Humburg said. “With her case, she was the only one that was selected out of the litter to be a police dog. With that, I think she got all of the genes out of the litter. She’s a high-drive dog.”

Bred and trained in Poland, Olga has been working to recognize narcotics and track human odors her whole life. Eventually, Olga made her way to Canine Deployed, where she and other trained police dogs were matched with law enforcement.

Humburg said Olga was chosen due to her high drive and her pointed-ears.

“Pointed ears generally have the higher drive with different things,” Humburg said. “They do better with different things. Labs and pointers are much calmer, so they generally use those for explosive detection.”

Now in Creston, Olga is getting to know the area and the people she’ll be working with.

“Right now, we’re still in the kind of training process of being around people,” Humburg said. “She’s not used to a bunch of people being around. The manners aren’t quite as good now as they will be down the road.”

Unlike Union County’s Patch, Olga isn’t there to provide emotional support and warmth.

“She’s not a pet, she’s a working dog,” Humburg said. “She’s trained in narcotics; meth, heroine, cocaine and marijuana. And then she’s trained for human odor, tracking humans and evidence recovery.”

Even residents who aren’t dog lovers can appreciate this new addition to the CPD thanks to the lack city funds used.

“Our K-9 unit solely drives on donations, so we don’t get any money out of the city. It’s all community based,” Humburg said. “If we don’t have money coming in to help pay for vet bills, food, equipment, training for the dog, any of that stuff, the K-9 unit goes away.”

Community members are encouraged to support the program through donations or participation in the annual CPD K-9 Golf Fundraiser, which is held Aug. 2. The fundraiser will be hosted at Lakeshore Golf and Country Club in Afton, with registration lasting until 9:45 a.m. and tee-off beginning at 10 a.m.

Non-golfers are welcome to enjoy food and a silent auction and raffle. More information can be found on the Creston Police K-9 Facebook page.