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Hilltop event goes to the dogs
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Larry McLaughlin and his K-9 Mercy, left, Jeff Saluga and his K-9 Lars and Chad Debarr and his K-9 Thor took a picture with first-grade students at Hilltop Elementary School May 9 to commemorate their visit.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Chad Debarr, of the Canfield Police Department, brought his K-9 Thor to Hilltop Elementary School to visit first-graders..Thor showed off his command skills for the students.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Chad Debarr and his K-9 Thor, left, Larry McLaughlin and his K-9 Mercy and Jeff Saluga and his K-9 Lars visited first-grade students at Hilltop Elementary School May 9.
By ABBY SLANKER
First-grade students at Hilltop Elementary School got a very special visit from three K-9 police officers and their handlers May 9.
Chad Debarr, of the Canfield Police Department, brought his K-9 Thor; Larry McLaughlin, of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, brought his K-9 Mercy and Jeff Saluga, also of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, brought his K-9 Lars to pay a visit to the students.
Thor is a 4-year-old German Shepherd, Mercy is an 18-month-old Belgian Malinois and Lars is a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois. The dogs are trained in Dutch and only respond to Dutch commands from their handlers. All the dogs live with their handlers and their families.
According to Saluga, the officers all command the K-9’s in Dutch and train together at the same facility so all the officers are familiar with all the dogs.
“The purpose of us all training together is if one of us has to cover for someone, we will be familiar with the dog we need to work with and we speak the same language,” Saluga said.
Thor and Mercy are dual-purpose dogs, meaning they search for narcotics and are used on patrol, including building searches and area searches. Mercy is strictly a narcotics dog.
Debarr gave the students a rundown of Thor’s responsibilities and then showed off his command skills for the students.
At the end of the presentation, Mercy worked the crowd with McLaughlin and received a huge amount of attention from the children and made more than 100 new lifelong first-grade friends.