Drako looks at officer Nathan Schmuecker while visiting a Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting. Photo by Sally Y. Hart

Detecting hundreds of grams of drugs, helping recover $50,000 worth of stolen property and assisting in a homicide case is all part of the job for Washington County’s K-9 officers. Drako and Basco are the two K-9s the sheriff’s office added to their force in July and since then they’ve been busy. Washington County Sheriff Jerry Dunbar explained at the Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting this week they’re helping with a homicide investigation, and they’ve found 216 grams of methamphetamine, 821 grams of marijuana and 2.5 grams of heroine, in addition to helping on several search warrants, 34 vehicle sniffs, four school searches and 17 felony cases.

Officer Nathan Schmuecker went to the supervisors’ meeting while his dog was energetically playing with a chew toy. He explained the dogs can do drug investigations, as well as search and rescue duties. The dogs are from Poland and come from a line of working dogs.

The supervisors officially retired K-9 officer Joe and transferred him to his handler, Jason Schlabaugh. For photos of Drako visit KCII Radio’s Facebook page.