PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) —The K9 Aftermath program is nominating winners for grants this year and the Panama City Police Department needs your help.

Voting opens May 25 and runs through June 5.

Aftermath is a crime scene cleaning service that has helped law enforcement and has awarded almost $200,000 to K9 units since its start. The K9 grant program awards funding to any organization that has a K9 unit.

“Aftermath is a program that they’re primary thing is, they do a lot of crime scene of processing and helping us after the fact of the crime scene. But they also have a canine branch off of that and they help promote canine programs throughout the country. You know, we’re trying to expand our program. You know, every time we get a chance to do that money like this helps.” said Sergeant Ben Mccloy of the PCPD.

The PCPD K9 unit consisted of Copper, a Beagle, and Boris, a Belgian Malinois, who have been on the team for some time now. These two have been great assets in solving cases.

“Usually, we want to get them out of the puppy stage. But I believe copper started early. He was probably the three- or four-month mark. I think we started Boris and seven-month mark and but usually anywhere between six, six months to a year depending on when you get the dog.” said Mccloy.

Copper is trained for the sole purpose of sniffing out narcotics while Boris is trained in both tracking narcotics and apprehending criminals.

“It just depends on what you’re doing. You know, Copper’s done pretty well as far as him. He’s focused on one, he’s got one job, right? So, he does very good at that. You know, the other ones have their strong suits. You know, Boris has come light years ahead of where he was tracking-wise. So, it’s just a matter of what you’re trying to do in a situation. They start as quickly as they can.” said Mccloy.

The PCPD won the grant last year as a runner-up awarding the unit $250.

“A new vehicle is one thing. So, you’re looking at 20, 30-grand outfit that. The cost of the dog is anywhere between eight to $12,000 or higher,” said Mccloy.

This is the third year PCPD has participated in this contest.

“You know, any time we can get any sort of grant or anything like that, it will buy us equipment, training, aids, food, medicine, anything the dogs may need. And, you know, hopefully, we’ll get to the goal, you know, bigger, better programs,” said Mccloy.

You can vote once every twenty-four hours on Aftermath’s website, Facebook, and Instagram pages.