Published: June 20, 2008 03:04 pm            

K-9 Officer Ron still loves day job

By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Like most people involved in law enforcement, Officer Ron of the Cherokee County Precinct 3 Constable’s office understands the importance of a balanced life.

While on the clock he is completely focused on the task at hand; whether it be tracking down contraband substances, chasing down fleeing suspects or assisting in a search-and-rescue mission. But, unlike most other officers, after punching out for the day Ron likes nothing more than heading home for a quiet evening of belly rubs and napping on the floor.

Ron, a bilingual, full-blooded German shepherd, has spent the last five years using his incredible nose to help fight crime in Cherokee County. Imported from Germany by the Jacksonville Police Department, where he worked for two-and-a-half years, Ron understands commands in both German and English.

Ron’s résumé includes numerous cases where he was able to track down fugitives, locate missing persons and sniff out illegal drugs — his part in busting 31 pounds of marijuana at the Cherokee County Airport last week.

“He’s trained for tracking, vehicle protection, handler protection, narcotics and attack; but narcotics is probably 90 percent of what we do. Every once in a while we will get called out to do a track, but most of the time he gets called in because someone has denied officers consent to search something,” said Reserve Constable Ray Bouman, Ron’s owner and partner of five years. “He’s worked an endless amount of dope cases; we’ve searched cars from Troup to Wells to Palestine. I keep a file that is inches thick of things that he has helped us with.”

Now working as a reserve deputy in Precinct 3, Ron answers calls for assistance from throughout the county, but mostly from the Department of Public Safety and the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department.

Bouman said Ron’s nose is 44 times more sensitive than the average human’s sense of smell.

“Using his nose, he can scent out methamphetamine, heroine, marijuana, cocaine, crack — all your basic narcotics. There’s not a lot of heroine in this area, but we train on it just in case it ever comes through,” he said. “When tracking a person, we don’t even need an article of clothing; all I need to know is the general direction a subject went and he can normally pick up their scent. Every time you move you shed millions of skin cells, and his nose is sensitive enough to pick those up.”

According to Bouman, German shepherds make ideal police K-9 units because of their unique combination of intelligence, endurance and animal instinct.

“Like Belgian malinois and labrador retrievers, German shepherds make good police dogs because of their strong prey drive — they have a powerful desire to want to chase and play. They are also one of the most stable dog breeds and are intelligent enough to figure things out pretty quickly,” Bouman said.

Despite having the training to do so, Ron has never been ordered to attack a suspect while working on a case.

“It’s a pretty traumatic thing to send a dog on somebody, so there had better be a pretty good reason to do it. We’ve never had a situation with him where we needed him to do that,” Bouman said. “The reason we can send a dog like Ron on somebody is because he thinks we’re playing. He’s not biting vindictively, he’s biting because he thinks we’re playing.”

In his prime, Ron was happy-go-lucky and always raring to go; now as he approaches 10 years old, Ron has learned to pace himself better. Bouman estimates Ron still has another two years of law enforcement in him.

Bouman said probably the only way the constable’s office will be able to afford a new K-9 unit, when it’s Ron’s time to retire, is if a grant for that purpose is found and received.

“He’s not terribly old, but he’s getting there. Normally it’s their hearing and their drive that go first. He’s my first dog since being certified as a handler, and it will be hard when I have to retire him,” he said. “He definitely loves his job; he loves coming to work each day; he it eats it up — but once the day is over he’s just a normal dog who loves playing and laying around the house.”

        

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