Now they have names! What DuPage sheriff chose for 3 drug-detecting dogs
Three new narcotics-detecting police dogs joining forces with the DuPage County sheriff now have names, thanks to hundreds of suggestions submitted to the office's social media outlets.
The female pooches, each about 18 months old, arrived Friday in DuPage by way of Florida and the Netherlands.
The Belgian Malinois will be named Merit, a nod to the recently formed Metropolitan Emergency Response and Investigation Team. The black lab is now Raven and the chocolate lab has been dubbed Xena.
"This was a fun way to interact with the public and see their creativity," Sheriff James Mendrick said in a news release.
Each of the dogs has passed a physical exam and will begin 160 hours of mandated training Feb. 3 with their human drug recognition expert partners. The goal is for each team to be on a 12-hour shift as soon as mid-March.
The dogs are being taught to detect a variety of narcotics, including heroin, black tar heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines.
The sheriff's office already has a 20-month-old Belgian Malinois named Odin who works with Deputy Tyler Fry, a drug recognition expert.
The three new dogs will allow the department to have one narcotics canine available on every shift.
Mendrick said the additions "will be a major step in our move to a more wholistic narcotics prevention program."
The sheriff was able to add the dogs thanks to a private donation to a nonprofit group called K9s4Cops.org.