BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — It's no secret K9s, or police dogs, are huge assets to law enforcement agencies all around, from sniffing out drugs and explosives to protecting their officers. But their expertise and equipment aren't exactly something you can purchase at a pet store.
The nonprofit 30x30 helps support K9 units with safety gear and training equipment. Now, they're pairing up with Floky, a 5-year-old German Shepherd and Dutch Shepherd mix from Slovakia working in Benton County.
Th nonprofit is currently helping to raise funds for a K9 vest, leash and collar to better protect him.
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His handler, Steve Wolverton, who is the Canine Coordinator for Benton County Search and Rescue, has quite the background with over 25 years of military experience and having been part of the 20th Special Forces as a medic, but felt a calling to work with K9s after the pandemic.
"When I walked by Floky’s kennel, he put both paws up to the crack in the door and pressed his muzzle over next to it, and just stared at me," Wolverton recalled. "I felt pretty certain that he was my guy."
Floky works as a trailing dog, which means he works to find missing people.
"With trailing, it's I generally know where the person left from, and we have some way of cluing him in on an article that smells like them, that he can follow," Wolverton explained.
Wolverton says it's an extremely beneficial tool.
"The canine is another tool that's at our disposal," Wolverton said. "With their sense of smell being thousands of times more sensitive than ours, they're able to not only identify a human scent, but to discriminate between two different individuals."
Wolverton said it's no doubt that Floky has changed his life for the better, and he said Floky loves his job.
"He doesn't surprise me that often now, because I know that he can do more than we anticipate, but he continues to push himself, and he loves the game," Wolverton said. "He undoubtedly makes me a better individual all the way around."
But to do his job even better, a vest would help protect Floky.
"One of the things that we consider with trailing dogs is the environmental risks that they're exposed to. Since they're not very far off the ground, relatively speaking, there are impalement hazards," Wolverton said. "Anything that we could do to try and give them another layer of protection and keep them safe is always a priority to me."
The bullet-resistant vest they're working to get Floky provides protection as well as acts as a flotation device. They're looking to raise $4,370, which is $281 less than what they would pay without the non-profit.
"It not only provides that impalement protection and penetrating injury type protection, but also it has attachment points for ridding," Wolverton said. "I spent so much time trying to make sure that that he's okay and that nothing's going to happen to him. It adds another layer of protection and versatility for some of the operations that we're doing."
Wolverton said he is thankful for the group's help with his department and others across the county. He added that the vests are becoming more prevalent, as people want to do whatever they can to protect their K9s.
"The organizations out there, like 30x30, that really step in proactively and look for canine teams that they can help are just, I think, a tremendous asset," Wolverton said. "I think about it from this is my buddy and I want to make sure he's okay. But from a purely financial standpoint, the number of years in training and dollars that go into an individual canine starts to add up. And in comparison, getting another dog to that level of training with another handler, far exceeds the cost of any vest that might have prevented the injury that ultimately led to either their death or retirement."
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