County 4H Clubs Enjoy a K9 Demo!



The Lee County Sheriff's Office put on quite a show for 4H Club members last night at the Ruby McSwain Center in Tramway. K9 handler, Cpl. Kenneth Gilstrap, demonstrated to the club members all facets of law enforcement using his K9 partner Oscar. The team demonstration included two searches for hidden drugs where Oscar quickly located the targets within seconds and then impressively returned to the same locations after the drugs were removed, where he picked up residual odor.

Oscar is a Belgian Malinois from Czechoslovakia and has been with the Sheriff's Office for 2 years now. Because he was trained in Czechoslovakia, he doesn't understand English, therefore, Cpl. Gilstrap has had to learn a few Czech words. The kids laughed as Oscar ignored a SIT! command in English, but then quickly sat when given the command in Czech.

Cpl. Gilstrap showed the club members some of the handling gear used for all types of searches, from drugs to suspects or missing children.

The team then moved outside and with the help of a qualified and trained assistant, the K9 team demonstrated a "run and catch" exercise where Oscar pursued and captured a fleeing suspect. (See video below)

Before seeing the demonstration, the club members were asked "Who's the fastest club member?" all the children raised their hands. However after the first run, they were asked "Who's the slowest?", they pointed at each other!

We'd like to thank the Lee County 4H clubs and Bill Stone for inviting us out!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you to the Lee County Sheriff's Dept. K-9 unit and Sheriff Carter for this visit...the kids really enjoyed it! Take care --Bill Stone