'Riggs' Training for Duty

The name is a play on words from a movie script, two partners facing the bad guy with different but complimentary skills. However, this isn't a typical partner relationship, unless you understand the relationship between “a man and his dog.”

The application to real life is that Riggs and his partner/handler, Deputy Collin Hauert, respond as a unit.

“He and I got hooked up the beginning of July,” Dep. Hauert said. Aug. 19.

Riggs is a little more than a year old and completing his training. He is trained in drug detection and they are working on his tracking certification.

“We train at least four hours per week,” he said.

Hauert said Riggs is still in the training stage.

While Riggs is trained for narcotics detection, he is not trained for marijuana detection. The reason he is not trained in marijuana detection, Hauert said, is if he has to be retrained because of changes in laws. He said many Colorado agencies had to get new dogs because their detection training made them “useless” when marijuana became legal.

Riggs is certified through the North American Police Dog Association. Hauert said Nebraska has more stringent laws.

Riggs is trained to be public; however, Hauert encourages people to ask before approaching Riggs.

The Cheyenne County Sheriff's Office purchased Riggs, a Belgian Malinois, from IronHeart Training Center in Pomona, Kan.

The IronHeart Training Center trains dogs for bed bug detection, special detection, police dogs and protection dogs. The IronHeart Training Center is represented with working dogs in 21 countries, according to the company's website. IronHeart Training says the hallmarks of its working dogs includes superior focus, intensity and determination, all of which starts with “a properly selection tested canine and ends with a quality handler course.”

IronHeart is licensed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as well as the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Prior to his election as sheriff, Sheriff Adam Frerichs, then Sgt. Frerichs, served as the department's K-9 officer with “Colonel.”