New K9 officer starts work with county deputy

The newest employee at the Shackelford County sheriff’s office is only two years old, but the energetic youngster comes highly trained and is a specialist at narcotics detection.

Joey was brought on board to replace Spyngo, the recently retired 11 year-old narcotic detection canine.

Joey works and lives with chief deputy sheriff Johnny Freeman.

“I grew up with hunting dogs and training hunting dogs, so once I got into law enforcement, getting involved with the K-9 program was just a natural fit,” said Freeman. “I first started handling a law enforcement K9 in 2009 with the Breckenridge Police Department. Before that, I was an animal control officer.”

Freeman has taken specialized courses in how to handle drug detection dogs.

“Initially I attended a two-week training course for handling a narcotic detection K9,” he said. “This training course was offered and taught through the Canine Academy in Leander. Since then I have completed thousands of training hours in canine handling, and every year I attend additional training seminars with my canine partner.”

Freeman said that he and his four-legged partner are also required to pass certifications in narcotic detection every year.

“Joey and I are currently certified through the United States Police Canine Association, the National Police Canine Association, and the National Narcotic Detector Dog Association in the detection of illegal narcotics,” said the chief deputy. “Joey is still young and currently his training is focused on narcotic detection. His training is ongoing and he will continue to be trained in other law enforcement areas as he progresses.”

According to Freeman, Joey is enthusiastic about his job.

“Joey does not realize that he is locating the odor of illegal narcotics and that it leads to criminal arrests,” said Freeman. “He is simply playing and looking for his ‘toy.’ To him, searching and sniffing areas is just a fun game that he is playing, and he becomes very excited and animated when he sees me in uniform or hears the patrol vehicle start up because he knows that we are going to work.” 

Freeman and Joey train several times a week, both during work hours and off the job.

“Our training is no different than any other skill that anyone works at to become better,” said Freeman. “The more we train, the better we both perform. And as they say, ‘practice makes perfect’.”

Freeman added that working with a dog is a 24 hour a day, seven day a work commitment.

“The ongoing training and care of the dogs is something that I think often surprises new canine handlers,” he said. “The canine is not like a simple piece of work equipment that you can take home, put away, and then just pick it back up when it is needed again. I often tell people that being a handler is like having another child except my dog listens to me a lot better than my children do.”

Joey is the third dog that Freeman has been partnered with since he was hired by the local sheriff’s office seven years ago.

“The first detection canine I had here in Shackelford County was a German Shepherd named King, the second was Spyngo, and now I work with Joey,” said Freeman. “Unfortunately, these narcotics detection dogs can be expensive and often cost well over $15,000. Shackelford County does not have a budget allocated to the K-9 unit, and therefore we have had to utilize programs to get canines donated to us, with the unfortunate side effect that each of my first two dogs were close to six years old when I started working with them.” 

Joey and Spyngo have very different personalities, according to their handler.

“Working with Joey is completely different from working with Spyngo, and honestly, their similarities end at being law enforcement canines,” the deputy said. “Joey is a lot more calm and chilled out than Spyngo. They are both very good at their jobs, but they go about them in different ways much like people often do.”

Freeman explained that Spyngo had served three overseas tours with the military and had received training that made him a lot less friendly towards strangers than Joey.  

Spyngo still lives with Freeman, and he said that the two dogs get along, but do not play together.

“Both dogs are around each other often, but their play times, exercise times, and training times occur separately,” he said. “They are both highly driven working dogs, and just to insure neither one of them gets injured, I prefer that it works that way. They are similar to having very energetic kids as they both want all of the attention and get jealous of each other very easily.”

Freeman said that he enjoys being part of a K-9 unit.

“There is a lot of extra work involved with it,” he said. “But most of the time it feels like I am just a man playing with his dog, and who wouldn’t like that?”