Seven police dogs graduate from Saratoga County K-9 program

SARATOGA COUNTY, N.Y. (NEWS10) - A K-9 graduation ceremony was held at the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office at 10 a.m. on Friday. Seven dogs completed this year's K-9 program and are now certified K-9 work dogs.

The K-9s will work for either Saratoga County, Montgomery County, the Mechanicville Police Department or the New York State Park Police. Each dog and their handler passed a 12-week intensive training program that focused on teaching obedience, patrol, tracking and for some dogs narcotic and bomb sniffing.

Nick Milligan, a sheriff's deputy at the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office, is one of the handlers whose 10-month-old German Shepherd, Bruno, graduated the program. Milligan said Bruno was a natural when it came to learning about patrol and tracking.

“We do the detection, certifying in narcotics and explosives," Deputy Milligan said. "Tracking somebody that's a missing person, or if you have somebody that commits a crime and then they take off, we can use our dogs to sniff them out and try to find them.”

Leah Howe is also a sheriff's deputy at the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office, whose K-9, Doc, graduated on Friday. Howe said K-9 teams are a crucial part of enforcing the law.

"Their sense of smell is much stronger than a humans, so with narcotics, especially, they might be able to smell something we can't see with our eyes," Howe said.