SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - Sniffing Out Crime: How K-9 Units Protect Prescott Valley

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Send us a text and chime in!In this episode of the SignalsAZ News Podcast, we sit down with Officer O’Hagan, Sergeant of Prescott Valley’s K-9 Unit, to get an inside look at the critical role these highly trained dogs play in keeping our community safe.Plus an upcoming June training event at Legado in Prescott Valley! #legado #prescottvalley #k9unit #podcast #PVPD #prescottvalleypolicedepartment #policedogs #copdogs #prescott #chinovalley #swat Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Everybody, welcome back to signalsazee.com, your signals news podcast. Today I have Officer O'Hagan in here. A little disappointed. I was hoping I was going to have puppies running all over, but I know they're working. They got a job to do, and I'm a little distracting, I would assume. Yeah, and he's a little hyper for a room like this. Yeah, he'd be like, okay. Everything wouldn't get knocked over and there'd be hair over.

No lights anywhere. It'd be like crashing around. So obviously you guys have figured out. You're in charge of you've got a canine unit. And tell me what that's like. So that's your partner, right? Yeah, he's my buddy. So I'm the sergeant over the unit.

I have my dog. And then I also run three other officers that have their dogs as well. So my dog's name is cowboy. We have Officer Ellison with Mack, officer Kenzie with Zeus, and Officer Pressing with Odin. And we all work different shifts. in different, mostly different times during the day, but our main focus is patrol and find drugs and be responsible for handling in-progress calls so we can do apprehensions. Awesome.

Yeah. So, you know, one thing we always talk about on signals is we, you know, we try to keep everything as positive as possible. So we're always talking about, you know, all the good things that the K9 unit is doing. And, you know, we'd never like to shine light on, you know, the negative stuff. but I got you here. So tell me how many, you know, what are some big busts that you guys have done or some big contributions these dogs have helped you make to our community?

There's their biggest job is drug enforcement. I mean, without them and their noses to detect drug odor is who wouldn't be able to get half the stuff we get. So that's their biggest, you know, accomplishment is all the drugs that they're able to get off the street. As far as weights and pounds and stuff like that, we have a drug problem here. Every town does. It's not a secret. But I would like to say we're not Phoenix.

So for us to or any other big city, I should say, our big drug teasers aren't pounds. We don't get lots and lots of pounds at a time. It's very rare for us to do that. I think in the time that I've been over canine, we were able to get one or two very, very big loads of meth, like 50 pounds, 35. pounds, those are very big loads. That's super rare for us, though. We don't work the highways or the freeways, you know, where a lot of that stuff is traveling. However, it takes one pill. If you can get one pill off the streets and one pill out of a kid's hand and one pill out of, you know, a high school, you're saving a life. That's what they're doing. So we have a drug unit in our, in our

in our department. And then we also have Pant, which is our, you know, together, we call it a joint task force that all of the agencies around are in. So we work hand at hand with them, work with our gang task force that's working gangs and drugs. So we're busy with that kind of stuff. We can get in the mix pretty quick. So more recently, you guys have been on doing some work with Legato. And tell me a little bit about that. What do you guys use in Logato?

auto for right now. Well, that started over the alliance, the old alliance building, which is behind Maverick. We were, when it went vacant, we were trying to use it as a training location. So we were calling the realtor, you know, continuously trying to get in there. And when the Faines purchased that building, I was able to get in contact with somebody there. And they said, yeah, you know, while we're, well, especially while it's empty, you know, use it as much as you want. And we use the out of it. It was, it's a great building. It was good for what we were trying to do for trainings and stuff like that. So we still do get to use it on a limited basis because now they're, they're using most of it. So it's being used more. But then that kind of started the conversation

of what other places do you have that we could get into and just kind of throwing it out a little bit, like, hey, what about using Legato? And we work with the project manager that's over, the Legato site and he was like you know that's not a terrible idea so we did have to wait for some danger zones to be done because there's a lot of holes in the grounds we didn't want the dogs falling in a lot of you know things that we have to kind of think about to make sure that the dogs are safe while we're doing some training once those got finished it was yeah here you go and as soon as everybody's gone for the day it's all yours and we use it quite a bit so having those dogs on site's got to make I know it makes me feel a little bit better knowing you know you've got

eyes and ears and everything kind of going on. And what a great opportunity to have kind of that space to, I think it also, you know, just looking from the outside in, having that kind of tactical, you know, you're in a building and you're doing.

I think it's, you know, it's pretty cool to have that going on with them. Yeah. And that's honestly what we look for in any building that we're going to. We have a whole book of keys to buildings all over the city that people have allowed us to use after hours and, or,

you know, if the building closed down for whatever, reason we try and get access to it. So having that partnership with with any company or anybody in the town that is willing to let us use it is super valuable for us. Legato specifically, it's such a central location to everything in town. There's so many people going by they they not only see our signs outside of the fencing that it's a police training area, but then they also see our cars. And so I think it just gives a little bit more peace of mind that we're out. and about in there.

And who knows who went hours and got our dogs running around and to be careful. And you've got an event coming up? Yeah, we have a very big, very big training coming up. So we initially signed, or it's not signed up, but asked to use it selfishly for the dogs. It works out great for us. It's what we do. We train every week. So every Wednesday is our training day and we are training with Prescott and Chino and

and all the other canines from the area and we're bringing them all here to do different trainings and stuff. So selfishly, we try to get it just for us. And then I approached the project manner to ask, how about using it for our SWAT teams? Would you be okay there? And he said, absolutely. You use whoever you want. The more of the mayor. Yeah. So our team, our SWAT team has been in there a couple times now. It's good for them because they're all patrol officers as well. So as it's getting built, they're getting the understanding of the layout so that in the future, when we're responding to emergencies there, we already know where to go. So we're ahead of the game on that. In June, We have a very large training set up where it's actually going to be all three teams from the local area.

Our team, Prescott's team, and Yavai County's team. So we have a lot of people going to be there that night. It's going to be very busy. We'll have scenarios set up for them. It's not necessarily a canine training, but I'm trying to set it up to where all of the teams are involved. And then all of the portions of each team get to work. And it's such a large facility that even now, if we had a major incident there, we would need to call for help. And so it's a good idea for them to get some exposure to that building and help us clear it and do different things there.

So it's a good partnership to have for us for sure. That's great. So I'm accustomed to, if you see a canine dogs, normally a German shepherd. Is that the case with your dogs or is it my? Not anymore. Shepherds are, some departments still use shepherds. For us specifically, we haven't had a shepherd in a long time. But generally, ours are Belgium, Melanoys.

So they're a little more hyper. They're a little more active. And then we have a Dutch Shepherd who's even on another scale, higher than that. But they tend to last longer. They're more durable, more athletic. So we can get more out of them for a career. And then the Shepherds tend to have a little bit more hip, hip, and joint problems. Yeah.

With how long is the standard career for a K-9? It kind of mostly depends on their health. If they're healthy and they're able to do the job, we just let them. It's like any of us, huh? Yeah, but we also want them to have a retirement. We want them to go and be a pet, go home. And when they're done and they retire, we get to purchase them from the town for a dollar. So it works out great for us.

I get to keep my buddy. And he just gets to be a pet. So usually around nine or 10 years, we start talking about retiring them and letting them just go enjoy being at home and sitting on the couch. That's awesome. I have to imagine the bond is pretty tight between you and your bud. Is it something that starts like, okay, he's a puppy, this is what he's going to be trained for, you start hanging out with him, or is that kind of how that works? Yeah, that's literally what we call it, the bonding period, is the first couple weeks of training where we do nothing. We don't train. We don't do anything but play. We take them in the car,

respond to calls, and in between calls, we just take them out and play. And in that time, we're feeding them, bathing them, showing, you know, I'm your guy, you're my dog, and we, you know, we're building that bond from the very beginning. And I've had Catway now for about three and a half years. And, yeah, it's super tight. Like, I, I feel weird sometimes when I get in the car without him, because if I'm going to a meeting or something that doesn't require him to be there, I know he's barking at home and, and I don't hear him in the back. It's weird. And so he stays at your home. Yep, stays at home with me. Like I said, I'm with him more than my family. So even when I'm at home, he's there and we take care of, take care of him. My family loves him. And so it's, it's not just an

officer, you know, position where you get handed a piece of equipment in the eyes of his job. He is a piece of equipment. He's a tool, a resource to use. But for me and my family, it's a lot more than that. He's, you know, very important. And I was going to ask. too. There's, is there, I wouldn't ask you for what the trigger word is, but is there's like a definite, this is playtime, this is family time, time to go to work. Well, and I think a lot of the bond comes into that because there's certain things, certain ways of saying phrases and stuff where he gets keyed up and he just knows it's work

time. I will say Cowboys specifically, if he comes out of his kennel, it's work time. Like I can't take him just for a walk in the neighborhood without him. He's working the whole time. Yeah. He's like that guy over there. Yeah. Yeah.

I want to go talk to him. He's gotten, it was one night, we were walking him down the street and I can see it in him. He just gets keyed up and he's ready to work. He's working and I'm like, oh, stop. I. We're on a walk. You know, like it's just the neighborhood. And as we got a little closer to one of my neighbor's driveways, my neighbor's laying under a bush,

trimming the bushes. And he was able to key in on him. And so then I ran him in because he's outworking. And I'm like, no, this is just a walk. But he's just working all the time. He just is always alert. Well, and you're his person too. He's got to protect you.

Yeah. And he's around the family. So he knows, you know, if my wife and kids are there that they're important and they get to do. And so they're always like, what's the magic word? I'm like, just yell and he'll understand the job and he'll get it. Okay. So I'm like your kids.

There's going to be a keyword that turns them on, but they just. There is a word. And we use when we get them, you know, know, the only commands that they know are their bite and release commands. And they're in Dutch. So there is a special word. But because of all the training that we've done and in the way he's, he's able to read the situation.

He just kind of knows you're good and you're not and you need to get out and he'll let him know. Man, your house is the safest place in town. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, Cowboys like, mm-mm. Not in here. Not in my watch. Yeah. And we do a lot of training for the officers to where he recognizes anybody in uniform is part

of the pack. And so if he were to be out searching and come across an officer, there's been a couple of scary moments where the officer will kind of come around up a corner and Calway sees him. And they're like, oh, no. And he looks him up and down and goes, okay. And then he goes back to work. And they're like, that, that training worked. So that's, that's a reassuring feeling that an officer is not going to get bit too because they're out searching for somebody as well. So he's able to recognize, okay, you're on my team and you're not and I like that about them. How long is it usually take to, you know, you get introduced to the dog and it's how long from introduction to they're ready for their first day of work.

Generally, our training's about four to four and a half months, depending on how the dogs are picking up the job and the tasks and stuff. So, but then again, like I said earlier, we train every week. It's a maintenance thing with them. If they don't use it, they'll lose it very quickly. So we have to maintain that training. We do our drug training and our bite work every week. So we do miss weeks here and there, but for vacations or I'm going to training next week,

we're all, or most of our units go into a training. We have to be trained where they're a very high liability tool. So we are probably one of the most trained units in the department. We go to a lot of seminars, but we also go to a lot of like scenario-based trainings where we're using the dog and in different scenarios. Next month, I believe we're going to Scottsdale for one for two days of nothing but scenarios and just going through things that maybe we haven't thought of or we haven't implemented here and going through it there and bringing it home and making sure that we're

as good as we can be. I'd have to wonder, there are there officers that are like, I definitely want to be canine and some they're like, I don't want to, I don't want to deal with a canine. I would, I'd have to. Yeah, for sure. It's a, I mean, every department has their specialties. You know, there's detectives and in the SWAT team and our traffic unit. And, you know, we could be a couple years of experience I've worked in the road.

You start leaning. I kind of want to go towards, you know, being a detective. And so you kind of mold your career that way. We do get a lot of people that like, oh, I love dogs. I want to be out with the canine unit. And it's like, absolutely, come on out. And the very first thing we do is put them in the bite suit and let them give it. And it's a big fluffy suit.

And so it doesn't feel great, but they're not going to get hurt, like hurt, hurt. And so we put them through that experience. and say, do you still want to be here? And some people, like, nope, I don't. I'm good. Thanks. And there's nothing wrong with that. But that's unfortunately part of our job. Well, because as a police officer, you have to be willing to let that dog go and attack

if needed. Yeah. I mean, it's, if your life is in danger or there's a bad situation, you got to be okay with letting your dog go and take somebody down. Yeah. And part of the training is that you have to be willing to wear the suit and get bit. And that's what we all do. So if you don't like that, that's what we do every week.

So if you know, you're really going to be miserable. And then there's other guys that actually just love it. They enjoy it. And so, yeah, wear it all the time. Somebody was telling me the other day, I got to put on a suit. And I got to, I was like, oh, you got to get bit. That's awesome. Yeah.

You have to like it. Yeah. Because if you don't. It's got to be an adrenaline rush, though, right? There's a lot of people that come up. Hey, it's a bucket list. And can you just let your dog wipe me. And I'm like, no.

I can't do that. All right. Yeah. I can't for, you know, we need people that are employed by the department that are protected and covered under workman's comp, things like that. But, but it is pretty funny how many people. Yeah. I just have this bucket list. Yeah, real quick. Just taste me and let your dog. I'm like, no. It's not how that goes. Yeah. People are nuts. So I just want to, you know, I always, it takes such a special person to bond with these dogs. And thank you so much. for bringing them to Legato and, you know, keeping our community safe. And like I mentioned, you know, one pill, one pill. And if you can keep those off the street and keep them out of our high schools and elementary schools, junior highs, you know, I sound kind of naive saying high school, but I think it's everywhere. It's everywhere.

Yeah. And it's just, you know, parents be diligent, you know, and just again, thanks for everything. and I didn't get to play with puppies. I learned a lot. Yeah. Next time. Next time. Just let me get bit one time.

You can come out to June and take a look at that and I'll introduce you around to all the other dogs. That would be cool. And I want to take some quick picks of them because that would be exciting. So again, Officer O'Hagan, thank you so much for coming in and say thanks to Cowboy for us. And we will see you guys next time. Thank you.