While the entire world is assembled in Beijing for the Olympics, half way around the world and in my own backyard, an Olympics of a different kind was held. The Connecticut Police K-9 Olympics was held at the UConn Campus yesterday. About 39 teams (dog + K9 officer) from all over Connecticut participated. Almost all the dogs were German shepherds. The teams were graded on several areas like tactical obedience, criminal apprehension etc.
It was amazing to see what Man's best friend could do. In the 'criminal apprehension' event, a police officer, who acts as a 'bad guy' shoots in the air twice while the dog is looking. Two cars are parked facing each other and are parked in between the 'bad guy' officer and the K-9 team. So the dog has to jump over the car to get to the 'bad guy' officer. The 'bad guy' officer has a thick pad around his left arm, which the dogs hold on to when the reach the officer. (as shown in the foto)
We also met a sweet Golden Retriever named Cricket. She was a sweet dog who seemed to like us :)