New K9, Yaeger, introduced by Allegheny County Sheriff's Office
A new four-legged member of the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office made his big debut.
We met K9 Yaeger, and he has big paws to fill replacing K9 Woody who recently retired after nearly a decade on the force.
Jaeger is ready to take a bite out of crime. The one-year-old German Shepherd reported to duty in January as the fifth member of the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office K9 unit.
"I want to take this opportunity to recognize Deputy Quatman for all of his efforts and handling one of our newest K9 partners, Jaeger. He's a bomb dog, no pun intended, Jaeger Bomb," said Sheriff Kevin Kraus.
On top of his regular patrol duties, Jaeger is trained to sniff out explosives and guns. He started training with his human partner Deputy Eric Quatman in September, and graduated from K9 school in December.
The high energy, and highly intelligent K9 was born in Germany, and all his commands are given in Dutch!
"He has some big shoes to fill. Woody was a pretty good partner, but Jaeger's already taken a couple steps already to do the same. He's been great," said Deputy Quatman.
His longtime partner, K9 Woody, retired last week and is enjoying lots of naps and playtime after 8 years of fugitive squad arrests and finding weapons tossed away after crimes.
A K9's sense of smell is 10,000 times better than a human's. Jaeger has already shown how powerful his nose is.
"We were asked by the county police to assist in locating a firearm, it might have been used in a crime, and he was able to find that weapon. It was down in a grate, a sewer grate. It was dropped down. It was about 3 feet down and he ended up finding it," said Deputy Quatman.
Deputy Quatman said he's still getting used to working with a young pup and Jaeger is still figuring out his routine so he can be a real paw-sitive force in the sheriff's office.
"The younger dog does have a lot more energy. Woody kind of knew my moves, I knew his moves, so it was a little bit easier....We'll figure each other out and kind of go from there. He's done well," he said.
"We're proud, I'm committed to continuing a canine unit. It's very valuable to the community," said Sheriff Kraus.
