Eagle County Welcomes New, And Adorable, K9 Deputy

By Matt Kroschel

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) - Eagle County once again has a K9 on patrol after being two years without one. The Eagle County Sheriff's Office welcomed an 11-month-old Australian Shepard named Echo.

She's partnered up with Master Deputy Rebecca Anderson. Monday was the first day on patrol for the pair.

Echo recently passed a six week-long special training course to be qualified as a working police dog. She's now trained and certified in obedience, tracking narcotics detection, which include heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and psilocybin mushrooms.

However, Echo is not trained to detect marijuana. Police dogs across the country working in places where pot had been legalized have been retired, and they've been replaced with new dogs that don't detect that as an illegal drug.

"Echo has been familiarized with the smell of marijuana, but won't hit (alert) on it because it is legal in Colorado under most circumstances, so we can't search based off a detection of pot by the dog anyway," Anderson explained.

Echo is the ninth K9 to work with Eagle County Sheriff's Office team and the only active K9 currently.

Sheriff James Van Beek said in a statement, "We are very proud of the high level of drive and success exhibited during training and certification that was shown by both Deputy Anderson and Echo. Our new K-9 'Echo' is a welcome addition to our office and I am confident that the team will be a huge benefit to the community."

The community can follow K9 Echo on Twitter.

Matt Kroschel covers news throughout Colorado working from the CBS4 Mountain Newsroom. Send story ideas to mrkroschel@cbs.com and connect with him on Twitter @Matt_Kroschel.

In:
• Eagle County News