K9 joins HSC Sheriff's Department

The Hot Springs County Sheriff's Department has a new K-9 unit with Deputy Shayna Cox and a one and half-year-old German Shepard named Riggs.

Cox said that she and Riggs went through about three weeks of training working every day. Riggs was supplied by a company called MAKOR K9 of West Virginia. Cox explained, "The guy that sold the dog to us came down and trained with me, brought the dog, delivered it, and trained with me. We finished a little bit early, so it would have been 21 days." Cox said they finished training in about 18 days.

Deputy Cox related her experience in the training and said, "It was great. We did a lot in the first week. We did a lot of odor detection and then some apprehension training and a lot of tracking. Most of that is just in the general areas around the county and then some stuff at the schools. We used the schools quite a bit and harmony stuff like that."

Regarding how difficult the training was, Cox said, "It was definitely rigorous, I would say. We did about 12 to 13 hours every day. That's with the dog, which is pretty intense. So, for the beginning, I think it's 190 hours of training. We got 190 hours in and then every month I have to do 32 hours of training with the dog. But for the first, probably six months, it'll be a lot more."

Cox said the relationship with Riggs is already strong and added, "We have bonded quite a bit in the past three weeks. He likes other people, but he's more partial to me and wants to be by my side at all times. He's very loyal. So I have bonded quite a bit in just a short period of time."

Cox continued and said, "I think he's great. For how young he is and the short amount of time that we've been together so far, he's shown to be just extremely loyal, smart. He learns very quickly. He's protective. He's just a great dog, a great asset to our office. And I think that'll be shown here in the next year."

However, Riggs is not a pet and has a job to do with the Sheriff's Office. Cox explained Riggs' purpose for the county is to locate controlled substances or illegal drugs.

Additionally, Cox said, "Also, with his tracking, he could do that. It could be a suspect. So if we have a burglary or something like that and he can do a track on that, locate subjects. He can also do tracks for people who are lost children and then on the other side of the patrol side because he's a dual-purpose dog." Simply put, Riggs is used for either narcotics or patrol. 

Another value that Riggs has is for officer protection. Cox explained, "If something were to happen, and he knows what to do and, and not something that we plan on having to really ever use because that doesn't really happen very often here. But it is a good asset, especially with being a female of my size and stature and being sometimes 40 miles, 40 plus miles away from there as backup. It's good to have a partner... In order for him to be handler protection. Obviously, he has to know how to fight a person. And on the off chance that we were deployed to say something really high risk or something or somebody had a weapon, he could do that, but only at the direction of myself."

Regarding Riggs, Cox said, "I just want people to be aware of his presence and know that he is a working dog and not a pet."