Columbus police K-9 unit now is largest in department history. Meet the new dogs
The Columbus Police Department swore in its newest four-legged officers Monday in what CPD calls the largest K-9 unit in the department’s history.
The dogs are Havoc (2-year-old German Shepherd), Colt (2-year-old Belgian Malinois), Neytiri (8-year-old Belgian Malinois) and Redd (8-year-old Dutch Shepherd).
CPD’s news release says Havoc and Colt are trained in narcotics detection, tracking and apprehension, Neytiri is trained in explosive detection, tracking and apprehension, and Redd is trained in narcotics detection.
“It’s been a long time coming, “ said Assistant Chief Lance Deaton. “A lot of people worked on this for a long time, trying to get this thing up and running and doing it the right way.”
Cost of K-9s
Deputy Chief Roderick Graham jokingly referred to the K-9s as employees and said, “These are some of the cheapest employees that we have.. All they need is treats, some love and attention.”
Chief Stoney Mathis said CPD received a $50,000 dollar grant to get two K-9s and used drug-seized money to buy a third dog. He said each dog costs around $10,000 with around $5,000 in training costs for each handler.
“We went ahead and used drug-seized money to outfit the vehicles, and we just sent all the officers to training,” Mathis said.
The handlers and the dogs go through eight weeks of training, followed by another four weeks of separate training for each.
Mathis said the overhead costs of the dogs is “very little.” He said, “There’s local veterinarian services. They offer those for free, and a couple of vendors offer the food for free.”
There are some additional costs, Mathis said, such as the hour of overtime paid to the handlers, who take care of the dogs 24/7. The dogs stay at home with the police officers, according to Mathis.
Full-service dogs
Mathis called new K-9s full-service dogs.
“They do drugs, they do guns, they do bombs, and they do apprehension,” he said.
“A police officer gets into a fight with a person on a traffic stop, they (the handlers) have a special button on their belt that pops the back door open and the dog comes in to the rescue,” Mathis said.
Mathis also discussed other applications for the dogs.
“A lot of things that they do out there is preventing people from acting up,” he said.
“If you have a large crowd of people protesting something, you get a couple of canines out there, it typically prevents them from doing anything they ought not do,” Mathis said.
Frog’s leap into mental health role
CPD also announced the moving of its narcotics dog named Frog, a black Labrador Retriever, to its new role as a mental health dog.
Mathis said Frog’s new role will have her roaming around the department to make people feel better.
“One of the leading causes of death for police officers is suicide,” he said.
“A lot of these things that officers have to deal with at work, the dead bodies that they have to see, just ups and downs, the highs and lows of a police officer’s everyday business, that dog is supposed to destress them,” Mathis said.
This story was originally published August 25, 2025 at 5:02 PM.