'It's A God-Send': Bloodhound Donated To Pittsburgh Police Healing Broken Hearts, Training To Save Lives
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BURLINGTON, N.C. (KDKA) -- Hearts broke when the Pittsburgh Police Bureau's new K-9 Loki died unexpectedly. News of the tragedy spread on social media and offers to donate another bloodhound puppy started pouring in from all over the country.
The Pittsburgh Police are still heartbroken about Loki and say they are grateful for all of the offers.
The most unique one came from Burlington, North Carolina, for a bloodhound that is already trained and ready to go to work.
When K-9 Loki died unexpectedly in July, the sweet 10-week-old puppy, had not even started training. Although there is still sadness, the need for a K-9 that finds missing persons is forcing police to forward.
That's where Cappy comes in.
"When I saw that they got this puppy, I was excited for them," said Mike Craig, who helped found the non-profit organization, Public Safety Dogs, Inc. "And then, that Saturday, I get the Google alert that the puppy died. So, Monday morning, I picked up the phone and said, 'You know what, I'm gonna call. We've got this dog.'"
Cappy is one of the dogs they rescued and trained, and after hearing about Loki, they offered to donate him to the Pittsburgh Police Department.
"It's a God-send. I mean, they rescue dogs, they fully train them, and then they donate them to police departments. They don't make any money on it," said Sgt. Sean Duffy, who supervises the Pittsburgh Police K-9 Division.
At 16-months-old, Cappy is certainly larger than Loki, but every bit as friendly. Out on the streets of Burlington, he's showing Sgt. Duffy and Officer Glenn Bogert the trailing he's already been trained to do.
"They're just learning how to drive the car," said Craig with a laugh.
Acquiring a fully-trained bloodhound, rather than a puppy, will save the department thousands of dollars and hours of time.
"It saves us a year of training a puppy. It's just a God-send. You can't put a price on a fully-trained dog," said Sgt. Duffy.
"If we spend $100,000 or $1,000,000, and we save one person, I'm okay with that. And we were able to do that with the first dog within the first week," said Craig.
It cost $10,000 to care for Cappy and get him fully trained.
When Cappy returns to Pittsburgh, and officially joins the force, his job will be saving lives by using his scent training to find missing and endangered people.
If you would like to help with any of Cappy's expenses, you can visit: http://publicsafetydogs.org/
