March 11, 2024 |
Photo – Retired K9 Zeus – Courtesy CCSO
The Carbon County Commissioners voted last Tuesday to allow the sheriff’s K9 deputy to adopt his furry partner.
During Tuesday’s Board of Carbon County Commissioners meeting, Sheriff Alex Bakken asked the board to approve a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, to allow K9 Handler Deputy Casey Lehr to take ownership of his former partner, Zeus. Sheriff Bakken said the MOU will absolve the county of any future responsibility related to the K9 officer’s upkeep.
Zeus, who is a German Shepard, joined the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office in 2018. Then Sheriff Archie Roybal used $16,000 of seized drug money to purchase the K9 officer from a training facility in Florida. Zeus spent his time in the sheriff’s department tackling criminals and sniffing out drugs.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, Commissioner John Johnson asked Sheriff Bakken how long of a career a K9 officer typically has. The sheriff said Zeus’s eight years on the job puts him at the end of his operational lifespan.
Sheriff Bakken said Zeus’s role as a bite and drug dog put extra stress on the canine’s body. Deputy Lehr agrees that Zeus should spend his remaining years in the relative comfort at the home of his police partner, said the sheriff.
The commissioners unanimously voted to allow Deputy Casey Lehr to purchase K9 officer Zeus.
