Drug-sniffing Dixie avoids pink slip
Dixie, a drug-sniffing police dog in Snohomish, Washington, was saved from the budget ax when the city council voted Tuesday night not to include her position on a list of those being cut.
The $16,000 a year the city would gain from axing her wouldn’t be worth the loss of her skills and the city’s investment in her training, Mayor Randy Hamlin said.
Dixie is one of two dogs on the force. The other, Kizar, is trained as a tracking dog.
A collie-shepherd mix, she’s never missed a day of work — even when she was injured, said her partner, Sgt. Jeffrey Shelton, who showed up at the council meeting to plead for her job.
Dixie has found $25,000 in cash and seven pounds of drugs, Shelton said. He held up a plastic bag of 25 grams of cocaine to emphasize his point, the Everett Herald reported.
Mayor Hamlin said the cash-strapped city may look into whether there’s a way to keep some of the drug money Dixie has located to pay for her care.
“A police dog could be self-sustaining given some creativity,” he said.
The city needs to cut about $180,000 in order to have enough money to pay the bills.
Posted by jwoestendiek May 7th, 2009 under Muttsblog, videos.
Tags: city council, cut, cutback, detecting, dixie, dog, drug-sniffing, economy, job, K-9, keeps, kizar, law enforcement, layoff, mayor, pink slip, police, police dogs, randy hamlin, retains, security, shelton, shepherd, snohomish, washington
