RIVERTON — A dog abandoned at an animal shelter is getting a second chance. Atlas, an 18-month-old Belgian Malinois, is now training to catch bad guys.
“He’s got a good drive for doing the police work. He likes to find stuff, he likes to find people, he likes to engage with people,” said Riverton Police Sgt. E.J. Estrada, who is now Atlas’s handler. “He’s got a solid foundation, and it looks like he would be good for the work.”
But Atlas’s road to get here wasn’t easy. It started at the Brigham City Animal Shelter, where he was in a kennel, abandoned and waiting for someone to take him home.
Fortunately, a Brigham City K-9 handler, officer Kyle Whittaker, saw something in Atlas.
“His hunt drive, the drive to go out and look for the toy until he finds it, not just give up on it,” Whittaker told KSL-TV. “And then from there, we check to see his courage, if he was willing to go hunt down the bad guy and see if he was fearful or not.”
Atlas was also the perfect dog breed for law enforcement.
“We tested him a couple of times and saw that he had the qualities we would be looking for in a K-9,” said Whittaker.
Unfortunately, the Brigham City Police Department didn’t get approval to take in another K-9, but Riverton Police Department did.
There are also huge savings for the department in Riverton. Just the vendor fee alone for a police dog can be anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000.
On Monday, Atlas was named by popular vote in the city, beating out other names like Tango, Reo and Creed.
Atlas’ new handler, Sgt. Estrada couldn’t be more excited about getting a new police dog. Riverton City’s second K-9 has reached retirement age, so Atlas is arriving at the right time.
“Oh, it’s so exciting,” Estrada said. “He’s just taken off with everything that we are doing. He’s just hit the ground running.”
Just as officer Whittaker predicted.
“I had very high hopes that this would be his outcome, and I’m proud to say that he is going to be a police K-9,” he said. “A dog in the shelter that we saw potential in, to a beast on the street that’s willing to go out and find the drugs and find the bad guys.”
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