Like a good showman, Deputy Trevor Tuorilla saved the best part of the show for the end as he and his K9 partner visited the Becker Area Senior Center (BASC) Thursday afternoon. He began his presentation with a display of some of the working tools he and his four-legged partner use on the job, including the jute-covered “training sleeves” that his human partner wears to protect his arms when running “apprehension drills” with the 70+ lb. German Shepard. The canine officer is trained in both scent tracking and criminal apprehension, Tuorilla said, and he has a bite strength that can reach 700 lbs. per sq. inch.
It was only towards the end of the presentation that Tuorilla went out to his squad car and brought in Axel, who, while obviously excited to be in a new set of surroundings, obeyed his handlers commands instantly with just a bit of verbalizing when asking for his favorite toy, a sturdy black rubber “kong” on a heavy rope.
Being a K9 officer is a 10-year commitment, Tuorilla said, which involves constant training and frequent demanding episodes of field work working on missing persons and crime scene detection. He and Axel are always together, “24/7”, he said, closer than a team of human officers would be, since they live and work together. Axle is “not a pet”, however, and he has a large fenced area and a heated and very well-appointed dog house as his domain on the family property.
Axel gets along well with Tuorilla’s wife, he said, and, as the couple has no children at the present time, the dog has become “the kid” for the moment.
Axel was obtained from a breeder in the Czech Republic, Tuorilla said, as the European kennels are still the source of superior bloodlines for military and police dogs. He has won awards in competition, and is constantly training in agility and obstacle course work between duty assignments.
Keeping K9 and human officers healthy is a challenge, since the nature of the outdoor work is often dangerous and physically demanding for both and both have sustained injuries in the line of duty. While not an especially large dog, Axel is heavily-muscled and is “tremendously strong”, Tuorilla said. He has broken the steel rivets on his heavy leather leash and pulled the retaining ring out of his heavy nylon bullet-resistant Kevlar® vest in his eagerness to get to grips with duty situations.
Training methods have evolved over time as well, Tuorilla said, with handlers now using techniques that involve less punishment and reward in favor of more well thought-out behavior-modification methods, though some of the bad old traits linger, such as a case recently where a handler in another department was video-taped assaulting his dog after becoming frustrated with the K9’s lack of response to training. Those individuals are being weeded out of the profession though, Tuorilla said.
Tuorilla and Axel are together in this relationship for the long haul, he said, and they will stay together when one or both of them retires from their law enforcement careers. A 14-year veteran of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Dept., Tuorilla has worked a number of different assignments in that time, including undercover and drug interdiction. He said that he will not continue as a K9 officer in the department, and so will not be breaking in another dog when Axle retires.
The K9 officers “love to work” all the time, and it will be a challenge for him to keep Axel interested and occupied. Working dogs like these can decline sharply once they no longer have the stimulation of a daily patrol shift, Tuorilla said.
Currently, it is a felony to assault a K9 officer in the performance of his duty, Tuorilla said, and killing a K9 officer carries the same penalty as killing a human officer under Minnesota law. A K9 can cost $7,000 or more, with $10,000 in training and many thousands more invested in setting up a K9 program within a police department. The two are often called to assist other departments outside the county on both search-and-rescue and criminal apprehension cases.
