Identity, specifically place identity, is important in a police officer's job as they have to get connected to the surroundings where they are stationed. This means to get connected to the location, not just the people. They must also have respect for the surrounding as everything has a spirit. Officers cannot act carelessly. “Water has spirit,” Tohe said. If you introduce yourself, approach it respectfully, it will help you. She honors the place where her grandma taught her that lesson: “Every time I go by that spot, when I drive past that, I remember that story she told about water.” This quote from the article  “How place names impact the way we see landscape.” is a key example of respecting and connecting to the landscape and people. 

“Canines have a long history of police work”. This article has a lot of knowledge about how canines had started but more specifically how K-9 units were integrated from the military to the law enforcement.“Over time they were used in theaters of war for sentry work, detection and attacks on the enemy. During world war I and II canine units were developed and trained for specialized duties to aid in military operations.” In this quote here it describes how dogs were used in the military which later had shown interest to law enforcement to use dogs for their departments as well. In the late 1800s there was mention that the London Metropolitan Police had used two bloodhounds on the investigation of “Jack the ripper”.

In 1899 the earliest K-9 training facility had started in Ghent, Belgium as stated in the article “The beginning of American K9 Units: A Brief History.” This article had a lot of information regarding the history of K-9 units. In 1907 the new york commissioner had shown interest in the dogs in Ghent Belgium so he had sent inspector George R. Wakefield to study Ghents program. When Wakefield returned he had returned with 5 Belgian sheepdogs. Later on in 1911 NYPD had 16 dogs trained to be sent out to various residential areas between the times of 11pm-7am the K-9s would tackle the suspects and stand on their chest while barking to alert their handler. However in 1910, in Glen ridge, New Jersey they had purchased 2 sheepdogs from NYPD to portal vacant homes and the streets but they had to disband the K-9 unit as the petrol car made them obsolete. There was not much talk about K-9s being used officially during the 1920s-40s. But during the 1950s is when there was a lot of action relating to the K-9 unit. For example in 1956 Baltimore City Police Department instituted the first modern canine corp.

Rescued By Ruby was a film that was based on a true story. This film was about a 29 year old officer who wanted to become a k-9 officer but had failed the test many times and was diagnosed with ADHD. The officers name is Daniel O’neil he was an officer in rhode island and his dream was to become a k-9 officer and he needed a dog so he ended up going to the pound and got himself a dog that was not very good to its previous owners despite knowing that he wanted her more than anything. With the pre exam coming up for the k-9 school he kept training ruby but ended up not getting in the exam but this did not stop O’neil, he kept training ruby and at the end he had passed the final exam and was on a probationary term with the k-9 unit. With O’neil knowing this he was very nervous about his first case which was finding a dead body and when ruby alerted he did not trust her instead he said there was nobody even though the body was buried 3 ft with concrete over the body and somehow ruby picked this up. To conclude the movie ruby had ended up running away from O’neil as he yelled at her and then O’neil got a call and he needed to look for ruby even though it was running he did not stop looking for her. Once O’neil found her he apologized and went to the new case which was to find a boy who was lost and when ruby found him he was in critical condition. With rubies loud voice she barked and the other officers had found O’neil and ruby with the boy. At the end the boy's mother was the lady who was taking care of ruby while she was at the pound. 

There are many issues that revolve around different topics, one of those issues that were discussed in this article, “How legalizing recreational marijuana impacts police K-9 training”. In the year of 2018 involving The New York State k-9 unit these new dogs were not getting training in the scent of marijuana. According to Officer James O’Callaghan, “We knew that this could be a possibility. So back in 2018, any K-9 that went through the academy out in Cooperstown, the narcotic dog specifically would not be (trained in) marijuana detection.”. Along the lines of this issue 6 of the 98 K-9 units had to be retired to avoid hampering investigations. When these dogs get retired especially if they are newer dogs the department loses money as these dogs cost around 3,000-8,000, not including the cost of the troopers salary. 

Did you hear? Not too long ago in the city of Gainesville, Florida there were several community members airing their views on the mauling incident of Terrell Bradley. Even though this incident had occurred back in April there were still a lot of angry community members who wanted the K-9 unit to be abolished, as mentioned in the article “Gainesville community calls for abolishing city K-9 unit”. By Omar Ateyah. Many community members had talked about most maulings were on black Men, As stated by Jaime Kurnick, GPDs chief inspector, “in 2020, GPD had 122 cases in which K-9s assisted or apprehended; of those cases, 12 involved a bite of the suspect for a ratio of under 10%. GPD records show that, of the 12 bite cases, nine involved Black suspects. There were also 12 bites in 2019, but the ratio was just under 6% because the number of K-9 assists was significantly greater with 203 cases. That year, 10 out of the 12 bitten suspects were Black.”. Through all of this the people who were mauled were still treated  from the  bites or any other injuries that they had gotten at the time of the apprehension.  One person who may have made a huge impact in the favor of the community to abolish the K-9 unit in Gainesville is commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker who called for the session. In Duncan-Walker's defense she had shown the videos of previous maulings as well as Terrell Bradleys video. As these videos had shown the screams of the victims this argument that Duncan had put up may have gone to her favor and at that the meeting had been adjourned and there is no news on what will happen to the department's K-9 unit program. 

The harsh and brutal shootings that do occur on the patrol of these animals. The K-9 units worst nightmare that will ever occur is losing an officer that may be a handler but that may also be the K-9 as well. But in this case that did not occur, Yes the K-9 officer did indeed get shot but with the aid of his handler being able to call for an airlift K-9 officer Huk had been shot but has been reported well and safe. This incident had occurred on July 22, 2022. This tragic incident had struck not only the officer and the department's hearts but also the hearts of the whole community. Huk had been shot in his neck, hind and his wrist. The non profit organization Iron Dog K-9 international had paid over $12,000 in Huks medical bills. But sadly it is unknown that Huk will return back to service and may have to retire. 

Osaka, Japan hosted for the first time the G20 summit which involved world leaders from around the world, because of the various world leaders the Japanese police had decided to use K-9 dogs to help deter terrorists. “The presence of police dogs acts as a deterrence to terrorism, which I hope leads to peace of mind for residents,” an officer in charge of the operation said (cited in the Japan times). In Japan the dogs and the handlers were at first going to be bought and supplied from a private organization but they had thought that would lead to more problems in the future. As a solution to this problem they thought were going to turn into a huge problem they decided to house their own training and handlers. These dogs that were used in the G20 summit were not like the CIU aka “Criminal Identification Unit”. Instead of tracking down suspects the dogs specialized in detecting explosives. This was not their only responsibility they also helped in detain suspects as well as reporting to any search and rescue scenes when a major disaster hit. 

Singapore has a special unit for k-9 units which is called the Certis Cisco auxiliary police K-9 unit. This unit specializes and takes pride in their success in finding different threats that relate to explosives. This K-9 unit consists of five different dogs, two of the five dogs are both two year old female Labrador retrievers. The other 3 are English Springer Spaniels. Two of these dogs come from the uk while the other come from the Netherlands. This special K-9 unit detects explosive substances faster than machines. “Auxiliary police officers can now carry out security sweeps faster and with greater accuracy compared to manual and even machine checks”  (Amir Hussain, Yahoo news!). As everything else the K-9 units that get old and retire will be put up for adoption to live the rest of their lives. The K-9 dogs can be trained in just 3-4 months and will serve for about eight years.

 In South Africa specialists start to train the dogs from as early as just 3 months old.  the major purpose these k-9 dogs serve is that these dogs have the honor to help serve and protect anti poaching organizations. So far there are 10 dogs that are being funded by Real Africa. In 2018 Explorers against Extinction had donated $50,000 to help fund six more K-9 units. Everyone of Real Africa dogs are trained by Animals Saving Animals which is based in the UK. The amount of poaching has been reduced to only one animal getting killed within a 2 year span. The dogs that are trained by ASA have the capabilities to survive in the wilderness and be able to search a thirty-two km sanctuary. From Real Africa “One well-trained dog can cover as much ground in a night as eight officers, making it much harder for wildlife criminals to evade detection. There is no escaping these dogs,”says Daryll Pleasants.