Jerry has had some pretty good busts so far is his first year.!!    One of his Tracks was this past June.  I had worked my 3-11 shift, gone home and went to bed.  A group of guys came down from the Chicago area and had a field day.  They burglarized several businesses here in town.  Stole a delivery truck and many tires from a local business.    In their attempt to steal tires from another tire shop they triggered a silent alarm.  Upon the Officers arrival and finding a pry-bar still stuck in a back door, they thought someone one might have gained entry and was using it to keep the door propped open.  Jerry and I were called into action. (About 2 a.m.  until  4 a.m.)    Upon our arrival and waiting for a key holder, Jerry was already hot on the trail.  Jerry I  were still really new and I hadn't learned to read Jerry's actions.  Little did I know that he was telling me that the guys had left on foot and ran back towards town where they were staying at a local motel.    However tracking away from the scene quite a ways and not coming up with anything, I decided that maybe Jerry and I should stop and go back to the Tire Shop in case the key holder arrived.  After searching the building we found no one and determined that they had not made it into the building.    So Jerry & I went back to searching some of the bean fields in the immediate area.    It was then that we got called to assist a key holder at another location to check his building.  A short time later Officer Flannery, Robinson & Myself made a investigative stop on a out of state car that drove through the parking lot (not seeing one the squad cars sitting there) and determined that we probably had our guys.  (Especially when the a set of keys in this car we stopped just happened to fit a car we found on the parking lot of the business that got broken into and that also had burglary tools in it, but they didn't seem to think that really meant anything.)
So about 4-5 a.m. Jerry and I go home exhausted!    To our surprise we received another call at about 9:00 a.m., I'm thinking, Man, this had better be important!!!    I get dressed go outside, get Jerry and he crawls out of his dog house and looks at me like ...
.....You have got to be kidding!!!  So we loaded up and went to our called location, the parking lot of the Movie Theater.
Officer Flannery, Robinson, Lt. Jarman and some other State and Macoupin County Detectives had been called in (because that morning, other people found their cars missing too, in Macoupin County. and possibly all by the same people).
I was advised that a man jumped out of a window at the Gardens Motel and ran south between the Rural King and the house
to the East.  The guy is believed to be back in the wooded area or passed through and kept running.
So Jerry I and start tracking and was quickly, hot on his trail!    Jerry takes me into the woods, around several objects, through the woods and then back into a corner by a old Chicken Coop.  Then into the Coop (with lots of junk being stored there as you can imagine) and he was really interested in the Chicken Coop.  I knew then that we had narrowed him down to here.  But for a few minutes we couldn't find him.  Then Jerry and I caught sight of him between the slats of wood in the southern half of the building but we were unable to get to him.  He quickly saw we had him cornered and began yelling, "I give up, I give up!  Whatever you do don't let that dog go!!"  (I would have been more scared about getting shot, personally but he like many others are very afraid of the dog!)
Now with objects out of our way, dog very close at hand.  We ordered the man out, he was cuffed and taken to Jail.
From there he was taken directly back to Prison, since he was on Parole.      I was later told by the Parole Officer that he was so mad at my "D@%> Dog"  "If it wasn't for that d@%> dog, I'd be home free!"     

The K-9's do a lot more than just track bad guys and find drugs, they provide a great psychological
advantage.        Most people realize that we can't just pull out a gun and shoot them and they know that, so they are much, much more apt to fight and or resist being arrested, putting us in harms way and could be injured.  But with K-9's around they don't even think of resisting.  Because they know that the dog bridges that gap in our "Use of Force" lay out between going from hands on fight & shooting someone.        With the way crime is rising and the positive influences I've seen so far here in Litchfield with
1 dog on the streets, I hope to see a 2nd K-9 working the night's I'm off by the year 2005.            Several K-9 Officers told me not to be surprised if we see a decrease in the amount of Drug related arrests in the next couple of years after getting a K-9.  Then you'll see growth again in the numbers.  Boy, they were right.      I took a quick tally at the P.D. the other day,  it appears that over that last 9 months we gone down about 25% from the same 9 mo. last year.            That's good!!  That means they are not bringing them out on the streets.          Fact, we know that with the dog were are able to detect drugs or paraphernalia in vehicle that we didn't even know had them, and so with that ability, and the numbers have gone down then the impact we are having on the drug users must be very strong!!