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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

IUPD unit wins best overall at K-9 Olympics

Tery will do anything for his tennis ball.

A K-9 officer for the IU Police Department, Tery is an 85-pound, full-bred German Shepard trained in the detection of thousands of chemical compounds in his role as an explosive 
detection dog.

Handler and IUPD officer Chris Collins takes Tery with him on all of his regular calls, and Tery’s work is rewarded with playtime with his tennis ball.

“His life is so simple,” Collins said. “All those odors are associated to his reward, and when he finds the odor he wants his reward and that’s a tennis ball. So he would do anything to get his tennis ball.”

Tery and Collins, who make up IUPD’s only K-9 unit, represented the department in the K-9 Olympics in Peru, Indiana, last month.

The event annually draws 150 dog teams from four different countries and 25 states. Tery and Collins, randomly paired with two officers from other departments, finished in the first place team overall for the event and also came in second for the K-9 Olympics’ building search event 
Aug. 28.

Collins and Tery competed in 20 events at the weeklong K-9 Olympics, many of these based on the dogs’ odor detection skills.

“It’s kind of tricky for the handler more than for the dog,” Collins said. “The dogs know exactly what they’re doing. It’s just a walk in the park for them. It’s usually the handler that messes things up.”

Collins said many of the competition’s events are based on realistic scenario training, some using old buildings bought specifically for odor detection training. Each event was judged and, to determine the overall winner of the event, the results of the 20 challenges were tallied at the end to create an overall score.

While Collins said he and Tery trained for the event, they did not arrive in Peru with the mindset of winning.

“We didn’t go there to win,” Collins said. “We didn’t go there to get first place. In my mind, I’m not that competitive.”

Tery and Collins, who have been partners for four years, have won awards at the event in the past. Because they are the only K-9 unit at IUPD and the Bloomington Police Department has only recently gotten their own K-9 unit, Tery and Collins train for a full day once a month with police agencies in Hamilton County, Indiana.

“In theory though, everyday’s a training day,” Collins said. “Everyday we encounter new things. We encounter something new about each other, and he comes to work with me everyday. And we go home together everyday, but we still find things to learn about.”

Tery, who will be turning six this week, was born in Holland and trained in Dutch. Collins spent three weeks training with him in snow and sleet in Peru, before bringing him to Bloomington to work as a K-9 officer. He said bringing Tery home with him was a change.

“It’s a lifestyle change for your house, your environment, your vehicles,” Collins said. “Everything revolves around the dog and keeping him safe and clean and making sure he’s ready.”

After bringing Tery home, Collins picked up additional responsibilities being on-call 24-7 for whenever Tery’s assistance might be needed. Tery and Collins regularly inspect Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium before sporting events, as well as assisting in tracking for crimes in progress, like robberies and bomb threats.

“Any type of felony case that happens at night, you can generally assume we get called out for if the suspect’s still at large,” Collins said.

Tery is cared for in a different way than most dogs. He is not allowed to eat “human food,” must be watched very closely while in public so as to avoid any accidental bites and he must be kept in shape to fulfill his role as a K-9 officer.

“He’s trained specifically for certain things at certain times, and that’s my job to take him into those instances,” Collins said. “He’s a work dog. That’s what he is. He doesn’t get to enjoy some of the freedoms that pets get.”

Collins added that while Tery’s primary purpose is to be a work dog, it seems to be what Tery loves to do.

“He enjoys it,” Collins said. “That’s what he lives for. It makes him happy. If you watch any police dog, their tail is going a hundred miles and hour. That’s who he is and what he does.”

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