CLIVE, Iowa — The Clive Police Department recently started a K-9 program to help better patrol the city.
They currently have one K-9 named Dutch. He was sworn in on Sept. 10.
Chief Michael Venema with Clive PD said they'd been talking about getting a program for years but finally decided last year to go for it.
He said to pay for the program, they went the route of asking for the community's help by way of fundraisers.
"We had corporate donations, individual donations, we ended up doing a can drive," Venema said.
The goal of the fundraiser was $60,000 but raised $64,000.
Chief Venema said the program will cost $5,000 annually to run and that will be funded by the city.
And K-9 Dutch is partnered with officer Brian Kempnich.
"It's actually been surprising how much less stress it just seems like having the dog with me in the car has been," Kempnich said.
Kempnich said his partner's job will be sniffing cars, people and buildings for drugs like marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin, black tar heroin, cocaine and ecstasy.
The officer said the reason why his department started the program was because at least once a week, the department was having to call surrounding cities departments, to use theirs.
So starting their own will cut down on having to outsource for help.
"This will be a great benefit to our community, it's always good when we can reduce the amount of drugs on the street," Kempner said.
Since K-9 Dutch was sworn into office, he's been used seven times.
But officer Kempnich said K-9 Dutch will be used for more than just drug-sniffing, he'll also be used for community outreach.
"Police dogs are now getting away from having too aggressive of dogs," Kempnich said. "We wanted a dog we could take into community events, have people come up and pet him, bring him into schools."