By Morgan Willie
If you’ve got a lovable canine friend, you know how it feels to be greeted with lots of tail wagging and a toothy grin after a long day at work. Your pal is at the door, chomping at the bit, and so excited to see that you’ve returned. It brings a smile to your face as you toss a toy around outside or curl up on the couch together. Your dog is your buddy, your dear companion and your partner in crime.
But, For Officer Russ Mize of Tumwater Police Department, his German Shepherd, Otis, is more accurately a partner against crime.
Officer Mize and Otis have been sniffing out offenders since 2006, when Mize established Tumwater’s K9 Unit. He noticed too many recurring incidents where runaways would take off into the woods, leaving officers with a difficult job tracking their whereabouts. There were only two dogs in the county at that time, and they often couldn’t make it to the scene fast enough.
So, Mize decided to pull together a proposal for a dog team at the Tumwater Police Department.
“It met with a little skepticism at first,” Mize noted. “Canines are a big liability, and the previous administration wasn’t really keen on the idea.”
But, with a turnover in leadership and a bit of time, the proposal was passed on the pretense of receiving enough public funding.
“Budgets were really tight, and so the proposal would ask for public donations to make it the citizens’ dog,” Mize said. “When I took it in front of our Public Safety Committee, they said, ‘Yeah, that sounds great! Why don’t we already have a dog? Let’s do it!’ We figured our startup costs would be between $12,000 – $13,000, but within a week of going public with the proposal, we had over $17,000. Bottom line: everybody loves a dog.”
Today, after 400 hours of initial training and spending 10 to 14 hours together daily for the past nine years, Officer Mize and Otis are absolutely inseparable.
“Being a cop is a great job, don’t get me wrong, but being a K9 cop is 10 times better. It’s almost like having a kid. He’s always happy to see you, and he just brings a song to your heart,” Mize chuckled.
He was quick to address how helpful Otis and other police dogs have been to him and the entire county.
“Dogs are a great locating tool. That’s mostly what we use them for – finding the people that run from us. They’re a force multiplier and a great asset to any department,” Mize said. “Nine times out of ten, we find the guy more quickly than if we didn’t have the dog.”
Otis and Officer Mize have a foundation of obedience and trust, communicating and responding to one another with ease.
“I don’t even know how to explain our bond to be honest with you,” Mize confessed. “He would give his life for me. If I am talking to someone on the street and they start to assault me, I can click the door popper on my vehicle and Otis will engage with no problem. And, when I get out of the car and I’m just talking to people, I can hear him back there barking to let me know, ‘Hey, Dad. I’m here. I’m here!’”
But, no matter how strong the connection is between a K9 cop and his dog, police work still has its difficulties and setbacks.
“A police officer is only as good as their last capture,” Mize mentioned. “Everybody thinks that having a dog is magic. Like, you just go out there and you find bad guys all the time. That’s not really how it works. There are a lot of other variables. It’s a lot of work.”
However, police dogs can save their department time and energy on specific jobs. For Otis, this is sniffing out narcotics.
“If there is dope or odor of narcotics in a car or something, Otis will alert to it immediately. One of Otis’ biggest ‘attaboys’ was a couple of years ago when he found 17 pounds of methamphetamine while he was sick with salmon poisoning,” Mize proudly beams.
Mize explained how his partner was poisoned after an encounter near the Nisqually River. “The county got in a pursuit with a guy who ended up bailing through a wildlife refuge. We tracked him all the way to the Nisqually River and as we were sitting there discussing stuff, I looked down and there was Otis just digging away at some salmon,” he laughed.
Mize took Otis in right away to see a veterinarian, and he was back on his game shortly after.
In the near future, Otis will transition to retirement and Officer Mize will acquire a new pup named Zee from Rocky Mountain Canine in Colorado. While Otis is still active, he is aging and as Mize commented, “Otis deserves to have a nice retirement where he can just hang out.”
Officer Mize is confident he’ll strike up a bond with Zee, but their relationship may never be as natural as the one he’s crafted with Otis.
“We live together and we play together,” Mize said. “On our days off, we sit around on the couch and watch TV together. If I get up to go anywhere, he’s right there. He’s ready to go at all times.”
Officer Mize will be keeping Otis at home after retirement. Needless to say, the pair will be watching TV and playing fetch together for years to come.
If you would like to learn more about the Tumwater Police Department’s Canine Program or support the program, visit their website.
