Centralia Officer Ruben Ramirez and K9 officer Pax greet children Wednesday at Edison Elementary in Centralia.
Officer Reuben Ramirez shows off his new K9 partner, Pax, during the Centralia City Council meeting on Tuesday night.
K9 officer Ruben Ramirez walks K9 Pax from a house during a JNET investigation Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Centralia K-9 Officer Ruben Ramirez and his dog Pax participate in obedience training last month in Chehalis.
K-9 units Chehalis Officer Warren Ayers with Tiesto, Centralia Officer Ruben Ramirez with Pax, and Mill Creek Officer Nathan Lerma with Bagira pose for a photo Friday morning in Chehalis.
The Centralia Police Department will soon have two new recruits — of the four-legged variety.
The department currently has one patrol dog — a Belgian malinois named Pax and handled by officer Ruben Ramirez — and will soon add two new dogs, one of which will be another patrol dog, while the second will be purely dedicated to sniffing out drugs.
The patrol dog is set to begin a 10-week training in early October.
Centralia Police Chief Carl Nielsen and his wife Jan own and operate Code 4 Canine LLC, a police-dog training business. They recently traveled to Europe with Ramirez to pick out several new patrol dogs, one of whom will soon join the department.
Ramirez is working to become a police dog trainer, Nielsen said.
“It was a good opportunity for him,” Nielsen said. “His eyes were opened as far as the selection and quality of dogs.”
Nielsen said his business is very selective, only picking the top quality dogs in temperament and ability. A dog must be both friendly when off duty and tenacious when working.
“It’s a lot of fun, but it’s an awful lot of work,” Nielsen said, of the selection process.
Officer Stephen Summers will be the handler for the department’s new patrol dog, a year-old malinois-German Shepherd mix. Nielsen said he couldn’t give out a name yet because he hadn’t determined which dog would go to Summers and which dogs would go to other departments who will soon be participating in a dog-training academy run by his business.
Pairing a dog and handler is about personality and compatibility, he said.
The second new K9 for Centralia, a Vizsla, which Nielsen described as similar in appearance to a pointer, will also work with Ramirez, but will be dedicated entirely to drug cases. Nielsen said the Vizsla — a female dog that has not yet been officially named by the department — will not work at the same time as Pax.
Pax is trained as a patrol dog and a drug sniffer, but isn’t trained to detect marijuana since he was certified after the substance became legal to possess. The Vizsla has been trained to detect marijuana, and therefore will only be used in large-scale drug investigations, Nielsen said.
Lewis County currently has three patrol dogs — one each in Centralia, Chehalis and the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office — and Nielsen said there’s plenty of work left for another dog.
“Ruben (Ramirez) has been working his tail off, pardon the pun,” Nielsen said. “There’s more than enough work in our community. I always find the dogs are a force multiplier for us.”
With the Centralia Police Department’s four days on, four days off schedule for officers, a second dog also means they will always have one K9 officer on duty, he said.
The Chronicle was not able to contact Ramirez or Summers prior to press time.
Nielsen is scheduled to discuss the additions to the department at the Centralia City Council’s next regular meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
