The Indian Harbour Beach Police Department now has Xena the Warrior Princess on staff. The drug-sniffing Golden Retriever, who is winning hearts all over the city, was aptly named by Mrs. Keyes’ sixth-grade class at Ocean Breeze Elementary School.
And while the class this week celebrates winning the name-that-dog contest with a pizza party at school, 2-year-old Xena and her handler, Officer Dominic Palmeri, are about to complete drug-sniffing dog training by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office with graduation expected this month.
Police Chief David Butler, on hand at Christmas in the Park Dec. 14, explained that Xena is a single-purpose (drug) dog rather than a drug/patrol dog.
“A dual-purpose dog is bigger, like a German Shepherd or Belgian Malinois. This is strictly a drug dog so it doesn’t have to be strong or quick and it takes significantly less time to train. Dual-purpose dogs can require nearly 600 hours of training because you have to train on all different aspects of a patrol dog.”
Xena’s initial training is only set to take about six weeks. Palmeri described Xena as a big puppy that was completely green when they met just a few weeks ago. She was not even house trained.
Now trained in the basics and ‘imprinted’ with the smell of various illegal drugs, Xena is certified to search people, luggage and open areas, he said.
On top of her usefulness in sniffing out drugs, Xena is “about as community friendly as you can get,” Barker said. “This is the kind of dog our community needs to get the most bang for our buck. We don’t need the taxpayers to pay for all that additional training.”
The cost of a dual-purpose dog excluding training is about $8,000 to $10,000 compared to Xena, which cost about $6,400, he said. If an incident requiring a dual-purpose dog comes up, the IHBPD works closely with the Satellite Beach Police K-9 unit, Butler said.
Having served on patrol and as a community service officer, Palmeri said being selected as a K-9 handler represented “one of my dreams of police work.’’
Once training is completed expected in the next couple of weeks, the new K-9 team will be on the road on regular shifts, Butler said.