K-9 officer getting training to keep canine partner safe in drug work

By John Howell
Batesville aldermen on Tuesday approved Police Chief Jimmy McCloud’s request that K-9 officer Greg Jones be allowed to attend training to learn how to administer Narcan to his dog, Azzy.
Narcan is the aerosol spray version of naloxone, the drug that many first responders have been issued to reverse opioid overdoses. Dogs search for drugs with their noses, making them vulnerable to inhaling potentially fatal overdoses before handlers realize the danger.
“We have been advised by the Bureau of Narcotics and some other agencies and our vet to get trained in Narcan use,” McCloud said, speaking to the mayor and board at their Third Tuesday meeting. “We can get the vet to write the prescription but the officer’s got to be trained how to do it.”
“How would they do that, the symptom?” Alderman Bill Dugger asked.
“The symptom is that he would just fall over like he’d had a heart attack,” the police chief replied.
Jones will attend a one-day free seminar in Tunica.
Small amounts of the opioid painkiller fentanyl have sickened law enforcement officers and drug dogs when they have come into contact with the powder.
In other police business:
• Alderman approved McCloud’s second “Coffee With A Cop” event for Friday, October 27, at Hardees from 8-10 a.m.
• On Saturday, October 28, the police department will partner with a Drug Enforcement Agency initiative to collect old and unused drugs for safe disposal. The drugs will be collected in the parking lot of the Batesville Piggly Wiggly on Highway 51, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“It gives people a chance to clear out their medicine cabinets,” McCloud said.