Rock Rapids, Iowa — The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office has a new drug dog.
Lyon County Sheriff Stewart Vander Stoep says the officers and staff are excited to welcome K9 Rizzo to the department. But he says in a way, they wish they didn’t have to replace their K9 Missy, who had just joined the department in June, 2015.
Vanderstoep says the new dog Rizzo, is a one year old female Golden Retriever from Arkansas. He says Rizzo was a free replacement for Missy.
He says like Missy, Rizzo received her training and certification in narcotics detection at North Iowa K9 in Humboldt, Iowa. Like Missy, Rizzo is assigned to Deputy Kyle Munneke. Sheriff Vanderstoep says the only additional expense to the county was having to send Deputy Munneke to train with Rizzo.
The sheriff says he has seen good things from Rizzo and has high hopes for her performance in her job.
Like Missy, Rizzo is what is called a “single purpose dog.” That means that she is trained for two similar jobs — detecting drugs and looking for missing persons. Some dogs, such as the other Lyon County K9, Ethos, are dual-purpose dogs — meaning they do drug and missing person searches, but are also trained as attack dogs. Ethos is a German Shepherd, handled by Deputy Rob Ver Meer.
VanderStoep says he thinks Rizzo will be a better fit with the public as well.
Friday, April 1 was Rizzo’s first shift on duty.
