Law enforcement officers from south central Indiana worked with their canine partners on water training at an apartment complex pool in Bloomington Wednesday.
The Reserve at Chandler’s Glen, an apartment complex off of I-69, hosted more than 10 law enforcement dogs in its pool, normally meant for the apartment residents. Since the complex is getting ready to close its pool down for the summer, it offered to host a pool and training day for canine officers.
Dogs worked in the pool one at a time with officers.
Sergeant Jordan Hasler with the Bloomington Police Department brought his dog, Twix, to work on water exposure. He threw a ball into the pool for Twix to retrieve.
“There's times that we have to find missing people or track people that have fled from us, and they tend to go to water,” Hasler said. “So, it's just getting the dogs used to being around or in water.”
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and Bloomington Police have two dogs each, according to Monroe County Deputy Sheriff and canine handler Michael Miller.
Miller said it’s important to make the training fun for the dogs.
“Because they won’t learn unless it’s fun,” he said. “If you’re always on them, or it’s always serious and they feel like they’re being punished, they’ll shut down.”
Miller said the dogs are commonly used for narcotics searches.
Law enforcement dogs are required to have 16 hours a month of training, according to Miller. But Monroe County aims for 20 to 24 hours a month of training for its dogs.
Wednesday’s training also included area tracking and article search. Miller said Monroe County’s canine handlers train twice a month with a group of about 20 canine officers in south central Indiana.
Hasler with the Bloomington Police department picked Twix out from a kennel in Pennsylvania nine months ago.
“When he come out and I saw him, I just knew that he was my dog,” Hasler said. “He was the dog I was going to train with, bring back, and provide the city with. And it's worked out so well so far.”
Wednesday was Twix's first exposure to water.
Hasler and Twix finished their certification training in July and started working together in August.
CORRECTION: This article previously named Hasler's canine as Dwix. We apologize for the error.
