Adams Police introduce new K-9 unit
Adams community members and supervisors welcomed a new member of the Adams Township Police Department at a meeting on Monday night: one-and-a-half-year-old German Shepherd mix Kiko, who will work as a K-9 unit alongside his handler, Officer Jason Giallorenzo.
Kiko and Giallorenzo have been in training for the past six weeks, since June 21. The duo's first official week on the road together in service began last Monday.
“He's in service and working, so you'll see him out and about,” said Chief Shawn Anglum. “It's very exciting. Just the amount of donations that were coming in, too, it's a lot of work.”
Previously, the department had collected donations for the K-9 program, which has been in the works for several years but was delayed by COVID-19.
At a June board meeting, Mars Agway donated more than $2,000 to the department to support the program.
Dual-purpose K-9
Kiko comes from the Czech Republic, and was taught commands primarily in Dutch. He is a dual-purpose K-9, trained for both narcotics and patrol work.
So far, Kiko hasn't yet needed to be used on patrol, but has been traveling in the K-9 vehicle and working with Giallorenzo all week.
“(Kiko) is with me 24/7, so when I'm here at work, unless there's some service requirement for the vehicle, or something's wrong with the vehicle or with him, he'll be with me,” Giallorenzo said. “He comes home with me. He's like my shadow now. I can't get away from him.”
Giallorenzo said Kiko is enthusiastic about his job, and is still adjusting to life at home.
“It's still a work in progress: definitely a 24/7 type of deal,” he said. “With these dogs, they're not your normal dogs; they're working dogs. The first weekend I brought him home, he thought the grill was going to kill him, and he didn't know what it was. There's a lot of learning experiences for him knowing that he can get acclimated to home life.”
The training process, he said, was very busy.
“It was definitely a run- and-gun type of deal,” Giallorenzo said. “From 7:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon, just nonstop. We would run exercises with the dogs all day, and rinse and repeat for six weeks. The training varied from either dope work, narcotics work, tracking, to article searches for evidence and apprehension work as well.”
A working dog
Though people are enthusiastic to meet Kiko, Giallorenzo emphasized that he is a working dog, and doesn't yet plan to host any official “meet-and-greet” public events beyond his regular work in the community.
“You want to introduce socialization in a calm, cool environment,” he said. “Public demos are one of the most dangerous things you can do with these K-9's, because there are so many uncontrolled variables. You don't know how people are going to react with the dog, and what kind of noises they are going to make, and how the dog is going to react. So anytime you do a public demo, you want it in a controlled environment. Everything is new to him right now.”
Giallorenzo said he doesn't want to expose Kiko to anything that he is not ready for yet, and that they are working their way through in terms of interactions.
“He's a very sociable dog, a very happy dog,” Giallorenzo said. “He thinks he's a 5-pound-dog in an 80-pound-dog body, and he wants all the attention.”
The Adams Township Board of Supervisors thanked Giallorenzo for his work.
“Not only is Kiko an asset to the township, so are you,” said Russell Ford, board chairman.
