Carbon County Sheriff Jeff Wood took to their Facebook page in March seeking assistance from the community to meet a $7,000.00 monetary goal to obtain new K9 officers. Since the announcement the goal has almost been met, one dog is currently working the streets and the other dog is in the early stages of being purchased by CCSO.

“We didn’t have enough money allocated to do this so we reached out to the community – the community has been amazing and we’re almost to our goal,” said Sheriff Wood. “We decided to rejuvenate our K9 program, so we had a K9 program years ago we decided to bring it back. Before we had one K9 at the Sheriff’s Office but the way the crews work we felt the need to have two and we thought it would nice to have a dog available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” This would allow for K9 crews to rotate shifts without overlapping with one another and the coverage would be beneficial to the needs of the community.

Because of the generosity from the public, there are currently two dogs with the Sheriff’s Office. “We have one that is trained and out there working, its with Jessie Bigelow, it’s a Belgian Malinois, it’s a female, she’s amazing, she’s already on the streets. Then we had a dog handler from the Uintah Basin bring down five for us to look at last week and Tory Christiansen is going to be our other dog handler and he selected a German Pointer,” said Sheriff Wood. The newest K9 officer is currently spending time with his potential handler on a trial basis to make sure he’s a good fit with the deputy before the CCSO finalizes the purchase.

“We wanted a specific canine – we want a dog that is community friendly. We absolutely are aggressive against all drug-related things so we wanted a drug dog.  But we also wanted a dog that we can take to the schools or we can take to any community event or even in our jail. So, we had to be very kind of picky about the dog and the temperament of the dog that we chose. So, the two that we have are big ol’ friendly dogs and just amazing,” said Sheriff Jeff Wood. There is still equipment that is needed in order to house the dogs.

Community members that wish to make a tax-deductible donation to the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office K9 Fund Program may do so at the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office located at 240 West Main Street in Price. If individuals have any questions about the development of the K9 unit they may contact Sheriff Jeff Wood via email at jeff.wood@carbon.utah.gov or call (435) 636-3251.