K-9 Teams

The Farmington Police Department K-9 Unit is a specialized division of the Farmington Police Department consisting of four dog-handler teams.  The focus of the K-9 Unit is to reduce the number of man hours spent on calls and increase the safety of officers involved in calls.  It is estimated that each K-9 team can save between 800 and a 1000 man hours per year.  K-9 teams respond to violent calls, building searches related to alarms or reports of forced entry, fleeing subjects, searches for missing, lost, or endangered children or persons, and narcotic calls. 

K-9 teams are also called in to assist other tactical units such as SWAT, the Gang Task Force, and the Region II Narcotics Task Force.  At least one K-9 is on call at all times.  The K-9 unit serves the City of Farmington as well as San Juan County, Southwest Colorado, and the Navajo Nation.  Regional calls for service are common and are examples of the good working relationships we have maintained with other local, state and federal agencies.  The specialized nature of the K-9 Unit requires handlers to train a minimum of 4 hours a week as a group in addition to the daily training each dog-handler team conducts.  The K-9 Unit has three dogs certified in patrol function and narcotic detection with the fourth dog trained in patrol function with a certification in narcotic detection being completed later this year.