News Releases

Mobile Police Receives Top Awards in K-9 Clash

Sep 11th, 2015

Mobile Police K-9 team receives top awards in the 2015 Emerald Coast K-9 Clash, a competition of K-9 teams, sponsored by Hulbert's 1st Special Operations Security Forces Squadron. Participating for the first time among 13 teams and judged on their K-9 handler tactics, Cpl. Patrick McKean and Officer Chris Giattina exceeded the challenge during the two-day event held Sept. 4-5.

McKean, a 12-year K-9 trainer in the Investigative Operations Division, earned the 2015 Top Patrol Team Award and the 2015 Second Place Top Dog Team Award. Additionally, McKean took home the first place award for Building Search and second place for the Controlled Aggression Award, Tactical Obedience Award, Scouting Award, and Best Decoy Award. Giattina, who has worked two years as a K-9 handler, earned the third place Tactical Obedience Award.

"Going to a competition and being judged against people you don't know and haven't trained with gives you a good idea of how well your dog is really trained for the real world," McKean said.

McKean and Giattina were one of the two police teams competing in the K-9 Clash. Other teams were military. Giattina stated the competition was a learning experience to see how well other K-9 teams are trained. Both McKean and Giattina were proud of their dogs Oscar and Aron, and plan to compete next year with great determination to earn first place in more award categories.

Mobile Police dogs are trained by McKean to conduct building searches for hidden offenders, locate missing persons, track suspects who have fled the scene of a crime, perform article searches, and detect narcotics or explosives.
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Charlette Solis
Mobile Police Department
Public Affairs Officer
251-208-1918