Five German Shepherd protection dogs are the newest additions to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s office. They are “multi-purpose dogs” for the sheriff’s department, which can do drug sniffing, tracking, criminal apprehension, and search or rescue. The sheriff’s office already had two dogs in their K-9 division, but they were trained only for drug sniffing. If the sheriff’s office had to track a suspect or chase down a criminal, they had to call in dogs from other agencies. Those agencies obviously had to respond to their own calls first, so the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s office had to wait. Now, with five elite German Shepherd protection dogs, they have K-9 officers that can do it all. The drug-sniffing dogs are still on the force, and handle most of the drug and narcotics cases.

The dogs are technically four German Shepherd dogs and one Dutch Shepherd, named Balt, Jeager, Dibbs, Romo and Grimm, with Jeager being the odd one of the bunch. The officers assigned to each dog endured a four-week training course with the animals, and then took them home to be cared for as family pets. Each dog became a member of the family, and a constant companion for the officers. Like all elite protection dogs, the German Shepherds are trained to be gentle at home, but serious and dedicated while on the job.