For the first time, the Prince William County Police Department is getting a female dog in its K-9 unit.
K-9 Chaffee, a German shepherd-Belgian Malinois mix who just turned two years old, has been partnered with Master Police Officer Katybeth Strobel, who was also the first woman in Prince William County to become a K-9 officer.
Strobel told WTOP two things were in play in selecting a female dog.
“One, I wanted a dog that had a better chance of getting along at home” with her retired K-9, an intact male, named K-9 Abrams. “Sometimes, you’ll find it’s more difficult having two intact male German shepherds that are patrol dogs living together.”
And secondly, when the department went looking for its newest K-9, Strobel said, “there were seven dogs that were available for testing and five of them were female.”
Strobel said there was another element involved in her selecting Chaffee as her new canine partner.
“One of the really cool things that I think about, like Chaffee and I as a team, is just the representation to little girls,” she said.
Strobel said she recently had two interactions with a family whose children were curious about Chaffee. During one of those, Strobel handed the girls a department trading card featuring her new dog.
“Later on, the dad actually emailed the department to say how important it was for him and his daughters to get that interaction,” she said. “And then, even K-9 Chaffee being a female was really motivating for them.”
Strobel said it’s a common belief that female dogs are not as aggressive as males.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” she said.
So far, she’s seen plenty of drive and skills in her new K-9 partner.
K-9 Chaffee has gone through four months of training “to go over tracking, obedience, agility, criminal apprehension,” Strobel said. “And tacked on to the end of that, we did about two months of odor detection for the explosives.”
Strobel had a high degree of confidence that K-9 Chaffee would excel from the moment the department visited the vendor who supplies dogs to police agencies.
“At the vendor, the very first thing she did was like jump up on this 6-foot cinder block wall, and one of the trainers that I was with said, ‘Oh, I like that dog!'” Strobel said with a laugh.
Belgian Malinois dogs have a reputation for being extremely athletic, and Strobel said she’s seen that at home.
When asked if her dog has more traits that are characteristic of one breed over the other, Strobel said, “Oh, she’s more like a ‘Mal.’ It’s like parkour in my house all day long, jumping from the couch to the counter.”
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