REGION – If you attend community events in Hudson, you may have seen a dog that resembles a small polar bear, walking alongside Hudson Police Detective Chad Crogan.
“Murf” is a 10-month-old white golden retriever who was adopted by the Hudson Police Department a few months ago to serve as the community resource dog for the town.
“He’s a celebrity. When we walk him, people see him and it’s a big deal,” Crogan said. “Murf loves to be with people and he’s good at his job.”
Community resource dog, police K-9 differences
The responsibilities of Murf differ from those of a typical K-9 unit.
According to Crogan, Murf’s main job is to serve the community as a comfort dog that provides affection to anybody who needs it. Murf is also being trained as a service dog and in search and rescue of missing people.
Murf makes appearances at events hosted by the senior center and health department while also attending sporting events and visiting schools.
Westborough Police Department K-9 Officer Caleb Polseno said his department has not talked about adopting a community resource dog.
However, the department has a K-9 named Luka.
Polseno said police dogs are trained by a K-9 program with the Boston Police Department. The patrol training takes 14 weeks, and after that training, the dogs are trained in a second discipline, such as bomb and gun detection, or narcotic detection.
Luka is trained to detect narcotics and to patrol the town, which includes searching for people and protecting Polseno in dangerous situations.
“A patrol dog does know how to bite. The purpose of the dog knowing how to bite somebody is to de-escalate or disarm somebody,” Polseno said. “We are trained to give a suspect many chances to give up, then we make multiple announcements before we send the dog onto somebody.”
Hudson recently got a new K-9, too – a Belgian Malinois named Jocko who is the partner of K-9 Officer Sam Leandres.
A community resource dog may be coming to Northborough
Northborough Police Department Lieutenant Brian Griffin said he and his colleagues have been “really exploring” the possibility of adopting a community resource dog as the pups have gained popularity within the last few years.
“We are in conversation with a breeder from New Hampshire who has provided dogs to various police departments throughout New England. We’re excited about this possibility, but there is some work to be done before the dog is hopefully implemented,” he said.
Griffin said the department is considering getting a lab.
“It’s a natural thing for people to come up and want to pet the dog, but it’s also going to strike up conversation with our citizens and police dogs,” Griffin said.
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