St. Anthony Police add K9 to force - East Idaho News
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St. Anthony Police add K9 to force

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ST. ANTHONY — After a few years of waiting for a much-needed member, a local police department has finally added a K9 to its force.

On Friday, Hunter Gregory, a St. Anthony Police officer, told EastIdahoNews.com that he drove to Washington state earlier in the week to pick up a K9 that the police force has needed for a while. He brought the K9 back to Idaho on Friday.

“I went with an Idaho State Trooper that’s got experience evaluating dogs and we went out to Pacific Coast K9 and evaluated about 10 dogs, and he (the dog we got) tested the best by far out of all of them,” said Gregory.

In a previous interview with EastIdahoNews.com in January, Gregory had said he was raising funds for the police department to get a K9 that would be certified in narcotics detection, tracking to help officers make an impact on drug trafficking and sales, and tracking lost children or vulnerable adults.

RELATED: St. Anthony Police Department raising funds to buy K9 to help officers

“The reason behind (getting the K9) is that we have done some analyzing of our statistics, and we’ve seen a steady rise in the number of narcotics and paraphernalia incidents and arrests,” he said in January.

Gregory said the dog he brought home on Friday for the St. Anthony Police Department is a black lab named Blue. Blue is almost 2 years old.

“We ended up with a rockstar K9. Without any real training, he’s already very focused when it comes to work. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to be doing yet, but when we were having him search for his toys when we hid them, nothing distracted him. He’s right on target. We are very excited to get him trained up and get him on the road,” Gregory said. “Everyone, including the folks I work with at the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office — we are all very excited to get working with him.”

He said Blue cost $5,500. Gregory will be his handler and said Blue would start riding with him on the job. Blue will then start narcotics detection training on March 11.

“(The training) is hosted by the Idaho State Police, and mainly it will be in Blackfoot, but we will also come up to St. Anthony and do some training there,” he said.

Gregory said the police department is continuing fundraising events for Blue to pay for training and equipment. Currently, there is a fundraiser for K9 Blue at the St. Anthony Broulim’s. Gregory said anyone buying groceries will see flyers explaining the fundraiser and how to donate.

He has also created a GoFundMe to help raise funds and told EastIdahoNews.com he is thankful for the community’s support.

“We are extremely grateful for everyone that has donated. We’ve gotten some very generous donations from businesses and just individuals in general,” Gregory said.

Our attorneys tell us we need to put this disclaimer in stories involving fundraisers: EastIdahoNews.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries.

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