PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) — Bay County Sheriff’s Office officials welcomed their newest addition Monday, an 8-week-old chocolate lab named Buckshot.
He may be cute now but a year from now he will be a disciplined 4-legged asset of the BCSO.
David Mochtaderi the Sergeant Training Coordinator says the K-9’s training has already begun.
“Sleep working on obedience. I got him to sit so far away and staying sit, No, not so much. But he’ll sit and he likes to play in the water. And then in the more sleep field,” said Mochtaderi.
BCSO brought in Buckshot to replace a 7-Year-Old Chocolate Lab named Remy.
Remy is a tracking dog that can also detect illegal drugs and will be retiring when he turns 10.
Mochtaderi said Buckshot is already training a little bit with the other dogs.
“As a team, we train about three to four times a week, about an hour or 2 hours, depending on which dogs we’re using to track and who we’re tracking. And we try to use a variety of people. So it’s not the same scent every time,” said Mochtaderi.
Buckshot will spend most of the first year learning to find drugs and then will be trained for human tracking.
Both are important skills to have to work at the Bay County Jail.
Mochtaderi explained K-9s are the last defense, after humans and machinery, to catch people smuggling drugs into the jail.
“But if we think they’re hiding it somewhere that we can’t find in their property, and that’s when we use the canines to actually go in and locate it, identify where it’s at, and then we search that area,” said Mochtaderi.
Mochtaderi said Buckshot is well on his way to becoming a cop.
“Hopefully one year we will have him certified and will go with that. Buckshot was made for this career field as well because he already had his sheriff star on his chest. So he’s got that already going. So we think he’s going to be a good fit for the agency,” said Mochtaderi.
Buckshot is currently training at the Bay County Jail.
