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Rex

Chitimacha Police Department receives explosive and gunpowder detecting dog from a benefactor

Story and Photos By
CASEY COLLIER
Rex is likely the largest Belgian Malinois one will have laid eyes on. His back comes to about 2½ feet, and his head, though more slender in shape, is roughly the size of a basketball. He appears lean, energetic, and slinky.
With eyes wide and searching, and a seemingly ceaselessly wagging tail, Rex is not secretive about loving what he does.
What does he do? Well, Rex is the newest addition to the K9 unit of the Chitimacha Police Department. He is an explosive detection K9, and has been with the CPD since March.
Rex is four years old and comes from the Netherlands. According to Chitimacha Police Chief Hal Hutchinson, he was a donation from a benefactor who prefers to remain anonymous. He was trained through LA K9—the same facility that trained the CPD’s other K9 asset, Dozer.
Sergeant Nicholas Picard, Rex and Dozer’s handler, says Rex is certified to detect 19 different explosive material scents.
He is deployable in bomb threat situations, firearm detection, and can track a human being, if set to that purpose.
Hutchinson said that one scenario where Rex might be deployed would be if the CPD was affecting a vehicle stop, and a handgun was ejected from the vehicle into an area where it could be retrieved by an unwitting citizen. Rex would have the highest likelihood of locating that weapon before someone else could.
Dozer and Rex are partners. Picard houses both K9s and they both ride with him in his unit.
“They ride with each other, 12 hours a day,” Picard said. “So, when I get down with them (from patrol,) I take them both out on a leash with me, and both walk right next to me. They’ve gotten used to each other and there’s never been a bad moment between them, no aggression.”
Picard said when they first met, since Dozer had only ever been Picard’s singular K9, he was a little jealous of Rex, but he soon got over it, and the two “are like brothers now.”
Observing a display of Rex’s detection work was much like watching a display of Dozer’s detection work. Both react to Picard’s commands, spoken in Dutch, and both receive rewards after alerting correctly.
Picard said that similarly to Dozer’s protocols, he retrains twice-a-month with Rex. They go to the same facility where they were originally trained, and they train together, sometimes at the same time.
Though Rex has not yet been tasked for availability outside the CPD, Hutchinson and Picard are eager to convey that he is available to all area law enforcement entities, the same way Dozer is.
Picard said that in Rex’s off-time, much like Dozer, he enjoys lounging on the couch, being lavished with affection. However, unlike Dozer, Rex is purported to indicate when he wishes to be petted. He puts his paw gingerly on Picard, to express that the time has come for another tousle, and looks up imploringly.

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