Jordy comes marching home — in less than three weeks

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Jordy will join the Charles City Police Department early next month.

“We’ve met our goal to pay for Jordy,” said Charles City Police Chief Hugh Anderson Friday. “Jordy is actually going to come home in three weeks.”

Jordy, a Dutch shepherd, is completing his training at Midwest K-9 in Des Moines. The dog will be working to help stop the proliferation of narcotics in the Charles City area. Jordy is trained to execute search warrants and has a nose for sniffing out drugs.

Jordy will replace Midnight, who retired last year because of medical issues. Midnight, a black Lab mix, had joined the force in 2009.

The CCPD put a down payment on Jordy this summer so Midwest K-9 could hold the animal until enough funds were raised to be able to bring him back to Charles City. The total cost associated with the purchase of Jordy is more than $12,000, which includes outfitting a police vehicle to keep him safe.

The department received a grant for $3,000 and has taken donations and held fundraisers to cover the cost of the K-9 unit.

Since the department announced the acquisition of Jordy, there has been community effort to help bring him home, with several local businesses and individuals chipping in money.

“We have raised enough money for the dog,” Anderson said. “We’ve raised most of the money needed to purchase the insert for the car.”

The insert Anderson referred to is a box or small kennel to safely hold the dog in a police vehicle. He said the price for just the vehicle insert is almost $5,000. Jordy himself cost $5,500.

“You think it’s pretty expensive for a dog, well, it’s expensive for a dog house, too,” Anderson said.

Other expenses include an outdoor kennel to keep Jordy at the home of Dario Gamino, who will be Jordy’s handler. Jordy will live outside with a pet door for the dog to get inside. Other expenses include the obvious — food, vet care, additional required training, leashes and other equipment.

“It adds up very, very quickly,” Anderson said.

Anderson said Jordy is really friendly, but a little skinny. He makes up for that lack of weight with his height. Jordy is trained to execute search warrants and has a nose for sniffing out drugs. He has a special diet, and Gamino will reward him with a treat when he performs well.

Gamino, who wrestled for and graduated from Waldorf University in Forest City before becoming a member of Charles City’s police force, was hired as a bilingual officer in May of 2017. He’s not only adding canine officer to his duties, he is also the department’s newest driving instructor.

Gamino will be going down to Des Moines for driving training this week, and during that time he will spending evenings acclimating himself to Jordy

“He and Jordy will become friends,” said Anderson.

The following two weeks, Gamino will be training with Jordy there, then bring him back home when that training — and bonding — is finished.

Anderson describes Jordy as a “very, long, lanky dog.”

“Unfortunately, we picked the dog who’s probably going to eat the most food, so that’s going to be expensive,” said Anderson, who added that Jordy was taller than he was — and he’s 6  feet tall. He said that Jordy’s mouth is so huge they need to attach small ropes to the tennis balls he plays with, just to be sure Jordy doesn’t swallow the entire ball.

“This dog is bigger than Dario already,” Anderson laughed. “Dario could ride Jordy as a horse.”

Although a dog that size could come in handy in apprehending aggressive suspects, Anderson stressed that Jordy is trained for the sole purpose of sniffing out drugs.

“Jordy is not an attack dog,” Anderson said. “Right now, Jordy takes 16 hours of training a month. He has to have those 16 hours. If we had a dual-purpose dog, that would go up to 24-40 hours per month, so now out of four weeks that officer is working, he’s spending one week training.”

Of course, a dog doesn’t necessarily have to be trained to protect his fellow officers. As most dog-owners know, a dog will often instinctively protect those close to him.

“Would Jordy attack someone if they attacked officer Gamino? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to be the one who found out,” Anderson said. “He’s a very big dog.”

Anderson did say Jordy would be utilized in the school district.

“We will have the dog in the schools quite regularly,” said Anderson, who added that the administration is — and has been — very supportive of bringing the dog into the schools.

“They’ve actually encouraged us to have the dog in there, so we’ll have the dog in there whenever they ask,” he said. “There are a lot of drugs in our school, there really are.”

Anderson said that problems with drugs are not unique to Charles City, however.

“Are there more drugs here than there are in Mason City, Manly, Waterloo, Nora Springs or anywhere else? No. People will say that Charles City has a really bad drug problem, but every one of my colleagues throughout the state and the country has the exact same problem, in the exact same measure as we do,” Anderson said.

He said that Jordy could be used in the school district both inside and outside the buildings.

“We’ll walk around and hit the lockers, we’ll also walk around and hit the parking lot and the cars, while the kids are in the school,” Anderson said. “We can legally do those.”

Anderson added that when Jordy hits on a locker, school officials can legally open the locker. He also said that although Jordy is not trained to sniff out guns, he will smell the drug residue that is oftentimes on a gun.

“One of the misconceptions is, if I’m smoking marijuana and it’s coming underneath the apartment door, the dog can smell it,” Anderson said. “The dog is not trained to smell the burning odor of marijuana, but he can smell the marijuana you have sitting in your pocket.”