Home > About Us > Stories > 2008 Archive

K9 "Jett" Replaced By "Rico"

The Bellevue Police Department has been growing its K9 Unit by adding a 4th team. The development of the 4th team has experienced a bit of a delay because, "Jett", the dog that was chosen in the summer, failed to meet the criteria to continue training. Members of the K9 Unit took Jett back to Indiana on October 20th and traded him for "Rico", an 88 pound, three-year-old Dutch Sheppard from The Netherlands.

Officer Gray was added to the team in August and had been partnered shortly after with Jett. He and Rico have now been training with BPD K9 Coordinator, Officer Bartley, for a few weeks. Bartley said Rico comes to BPD with a higher level of training and that it’s paying off, he said, "there’s not as much confusion with this dog, he’s very confident in what he’s doing. He’s a quick learner. For example, he’s not supposed to bite someone who’s standing still, he learned that very quickly. The dog is smart, he catches on very fast."

Officer Gray agreed that Rico is a "fantastic" dog that is eager to learn, "he can be very agressive while doing patrol work and is starting to get intense doing drug work. Rico has adjusted well to his new surroundings and has been slowly adapting to my family. I'm looking forward to finishing training and start working full time with Rico as my partner." Both the officer and the dog are required to pass 10 weeks of very challenging training in K9 tactics. The current plan is to have the new team street-ready by the end of February.

Related: BPD Introduces "Jett", Partner of Officer Gray

Photo: Rico, Police Service Dog Candidate