Greyson Scott has been a Police Officer with the Sycamore PD for 10 years. He was asked to create a K-9 unit and had to undergo thorough training in the 8-week course at the Canine Academy before being partnered with Wes, now a 3 year old Malinois/German Shepherd mix. Dogs with her mix are thought to be great at police work based on their genes. Before being assigned to Scott, Wes had undergone a significant (12-18 month) basic pre-training to help ensure that she had the basic obedience skills and characteristics to be successful in this challenging line of work. Even though both dog and Officer have been certified, they still must undergo 16 hours of monthly training to maintain the required standards and both must be state-certified once a year.

 

Wes is a high energy, dual purpose Police Dog, with functions of locating narcotics as well as human odor scents...individuals as well as items, such as cell phones. She does not work as a bomb or gun powder sniffer nor does she ID cannabis. This is critical because dogs should never mix or match other odors which could greatly hurt their primary performance. The biggest challenge that Officer Scott and Wes face is obedience training to the commands that Scott gives her in Dutch. The key to successful training is patience and repetitiveness. Wes is so well trained that she pees and poops on command! Everything in Wes' world is work-related so there is no non-professional interaction in her day; in fact, although she lives at Officer Scott's home, for safety reasons, she doesn't interact with his family, their home, or his other dog. Wes stays in a special kennel in Scott's garage. When Scott goes on vacation Wes must be boarded and when she retires, if allowed, Scott plans to integrate her into his home. Wes lives to work and has an estimated effective life span of 7 years. According to Scott, Wes' cost is over $15,000 in dog cost and training.

 

Also joining Officer Scott at our meeting was Officer Hunter Whitfield, who is also on the K-9 force, and is currently completing week 7 out of 8 at the Canine Academy. His Police Dog is named Gibbs. Upon completion of training, Sycamore will have 2 working dogs who are often called upon to assist other police departments that do not have these highly trained dogs.

 

The Sycamore Police Department has a third dog, Dooley is primarily a therapy dog. He is assigned to Officer Peterson, the school resource officer at the middle school. The middle school kids compete in order to win some time with this lovable dog!

June 3, 1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson (as King Edward VIII he abdicated the British throne the previous December to avoid a constitutional crisis by marrying a divorced woman).

 

June 4, 1989 – The Chinese government ordered troops to open fire on unarmed protesters in Tienanmen Square, Beijing, with an estimated 3,000 killed and 1,600 arrested.

 

June 5, 1783 – The first sustained flight occurred as a hot air balloon was launched at Annonay, France, by brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier.

 

June 6, 1944 – The largest seaborne invasion in history began as Allied troops undertook the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.  The operation began the liberation of France from Nazi control and laid the foundations of the Allied victory in Europe.

June 1, 1926 – Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe is born in Los Angeles (her given name is Norma Jean Mortensen).

 

June 2, 1904 – Five-time Olympic Gold Medalist in swimming (1924 and 1928) and actor (famous for Tarzan) Johnny Weissmuller is born in Freidorf, Austria-Hungary.

 

June 4, 1783 – King George III is born in London – he rules England for 60 years from 1760 to 1820, including the time of the American Revolution.

 

June 5, 1883 – British economist and founder of modern-day macroeconomics, John Maynard Keynes, is born in Cambridge, England.