Seat Belt and Sobriety Checkpoint Scheduled for Terrebonne Parish
July 2, 2020
Louisiana adds 1,383 new cases today; 840 total patients in hospitals
July 2, 2020
Yesterday afternoon, members of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office K-9 Division, which includes six canines and their handlers, were administered their oaths by Clerk of Court Theresa Robichaux at the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse.
Officers Kyle Dunning, Kara Blackwell, George Davis, Tyler Fitch, Dillon Condetti and Lt. Seth Boudreaux raised their hands on behalf of their four-legged partners.
Boudreaux, commander of the unit, said their canines are like family and touched on how important it is for a handler to build a relationship with their partner.
“If you don’t have a good relationship with your dog, you’re absolutely going to hate it. If the bond is not there, then you working with the dog and the dog working with you just doesn’t happen,” he said.
Boudreaux continued: “Everything that you feel runs down leash, and the dog feels it. It makes it much easier when you have a good bond and you treat the dog like family; it just makes everything run smoothly.”
Boudreaux, the K-9 trainer for Terrebonne Parish, said the dogs go through rigorous training that takes anywhere from four to eight months before they are ready to go out in the field. “The biggest thing we try to do is make sure that we expose these dogs to every environment, every situation: anything that could possibly occur that’s in a real life situation,” he continued, “make sure you see how they react and make sure that it’s the way that we need them to react.”
Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Tim Soignet, who was sworn in that morning, signed the official filing for each canine deputy: Oti, a Dutch shepherd, and German shepherds Grimm, Hoss, Jager, Karma and Charon.
Soignet noted how important the canines are to the Sheriff’s Office, saying they are another barrier of protection for officers and have the ability to track everything from narcotics to missing people.
“That’s one of the most vital parts of our office,” he added. “We’ve increased them over the last couple of months, as we should…For cleaning up narcotics in Terrebonne, K-9 is one of the best tools to accomplish that job along with our narcotics investigators.”
Watch video of the ceremonial barking by the four-legged deputies after being administered their oaths:
