Facility Dogs in Law Enforcement: Their Role in the Community and with First Responders

In this webinar, we will discuss the benefits for a police department or any other first responder agency to have a comfort/facility K-9. We will provide examples of how to use the K-9s with demonstrations properly and explain the process to apply to Puppies Behind Bars and the training they provide to receive one of the K-9s.

Speaker and Presenter Information

Community Engagement Officer Eric Fredricks is from the Waterford Police Department in Connecticut. He has been with the agency for 13 years. He is part of various teams with the agency (Peer Support Team, Accident Investigation Team, Crisis Negotiation Team, etc.). He was assigned to the Detective Unit for 3 years as an Investigator. After those three years, he was assigned as the Community Engagement Officer. He was then partnered with K-9 Hodges, who was trained to be a facility dog by Puppies Behind Bars. In this current assignment, his focus is officer wellness, victim support, and community engagement. Hodges and Officer Fredricks fill those roles with a variety of programs and events.