O’Fallon Gets New Bomb-Sniffing K9
The O’Fallon Police Department recently met their newest member, and while he is more than capable of shaking hands, you won’t get a word out of him. That’s because Talos is a K9 bomb-sniffing dog! He was recently introduced to the City Council at their April 25th meeting with his partner, officer Michael Aronson.
Aronson and Talos graduated from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s Canine Training School on March 29th. The two are now on duty together, working to keep the streets of O’Fallon safe, and also assisting in explosives detection.
Talos is a German Shepherd who will assist the department with building, article, and area searches, apprehension work, and tracking suspects, in addition to his duties as an explosives detective dog. Talos is actually the only police K9 of his kind in St. Charles County.
Police Chief Roy Joachimstaler acknowledged the need for O’Fallon to have a dog on the force that was trained to sniff out bombs. The police department has several other police K9s, however, Talos was the first dog hired since Bo retired last October. The 11-year-old black Labrador Retriever spent eight years as the department’s only arson-detection K9.
Joachimstaler acknowledged the expense associated with such a specialized K9, saying that the total cost to bring Talos on board is $55,600. Part of that was his own cost, but most of it was for the specially-equipped patrol car. The money used to purchase the police car and Talos came from seized funds, fines, and forfeitures.
St. Louis recently obtained a new police dog as well. Andi, a 15-month-old chocolate Labrador Retriever, was raised in prison and joins the St. Louis field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. She is the office’s first explosives-sniffing dog. Andi was raised by prison inmates through the “Puppies Behind Bars” program. The group raises and trains bomb-sniffing dogs and service dogs for the disabled.
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