Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Jed Boal ReportingThe Utah Highway Patrol today threw a retirement party for three of its most dedicated troopers. These troopers are K-9's and they patrol the state's roadways, fighting crime with their handlers. Their contribution is nothing to whimper at.
More than 4500 pounds of pot, 331 pounds of cocaine, 166 pounds of meth and five pounds of heroin. During the last decade, this trio of police service dogs has taken down 70 suspects in more than three thousand narcotics deployments.
Lt.Jeff Chugg, UHP: "It's easy to measure the quantity of drugs, but how many people do we have out there not involved in drugs because of these dogs? If we could measure that, we'd be astounded."
Sgt. Ken Purdy, UHP K-9 Program: "These dogs have worked our interstates and kept our communities and our state safe."
Bayo, Claudio and Maverick gobbled down retirement cake as their handlers told stories of their careers.
Sgt. Steve Salas, UHP K-9 Handler: "You spend more time with your dog than with your family; it's an incredible bond that you form."
Now it's time for the Belgian Malinoises to trot off into retirement and leave the training and drug busts to the young pups.
The handlers tell us the dogs really will miss the work. To them, it's not really a job, it's more like a game, or play.
Sgt. Steve Salas, UHP K-9 Handler: "Each morning, I get up and get the new dog and put him in the car, and you can see Claudio wants to go to work. It's taken him about a month to adjust, but he'll get used to the retired life."
The dogs also sniffed out many schools, helping make them drug-free zones.
Maj. Mike Kuehn, Utah Highway Patrol: "We have some lonely stretches of highway in Utah. I know these troopers are glad to have them as partners."
The dogs will live the rest of their lives with their handlers in low-key retirement. Highway Patrol has younger K-9's moving up in the ranks.
