Doggie Narcan Helps Save K-9s On The Front Lines Of The Opioid Crisis
ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. (CBSNewYork) – Meet Primus, his pal Packer and their friend Finn.
They are the latest victims of the opioid crisis. All three K-9s recently overdosed and nearly died.
But as CBS2's Dick Brennan reported, there's a new push by police and others to protect their four-legged partners from K-9 overdoses.
Two-year-old Labrador Quori has one of the best drug arrest records in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey. Sgt. Scott Kivet is his partner.
"He'll close the case a lot of times," Kivet said.
Quori's weapon is his nose, with 40 times the sensitivity of his human counterparts. He makes it much easier to find drugs that are smuggled through the suburban town en route to New York City.
"As much as our gut is saying hey, there's drugs… there is a line that we can't cross," said Kivet. "Quori can localize the odor to where we can know where that drug is."
But that drug, typically heroin, is often laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid so powerful an officer in Ohio overdosed on trace amounts.
Kivet said inhaling just a speck is enough to kill Quori and his colleague Rigo, who's an explosives search dog.
"You're asking him to put his full face into something," Patrolman Edward Vincent said. "Not knowing what it is… So I am nervous."
But now, these officers and others across the country are taking matters into their own hands. They're being trained to treat overdoses in dogs with the same drug used on humans – naloxone, or Narcan.
Doggie Narcan, like the human version, can either be injected or inhaled and it works. K-9s Primus, Packer and Finn are living proof.
But it can be expensive.
After he lost his son to a drug overdose in 2010, Paul Ressler founded TOPAC, a nonprofit organization that provides Narcan kits and training to law enforcement.
"As a family, we had this great love for dogs," he said.
Now, thanks to Quori – pronounced like Ressler's son's name, Corey – his organization is recognizing the role dogs are playing in combatting the epidemic by donating doggie Narcan kits.
Kivet said it's the one and only thing providing a sense of security when it comes to protecting his partner.
You too can help save the life of a police dog. For more information, click here.