Salinas Police introduces new mascot, Buddy
The Salinas Police Department has a new staff member on patrol these days, and it’s not your typical officer.
Buddy used to belong to an elderly man who recently passed away.
“We thought, if she can enrich his life, why can’t she be given an opportunity to do that for more than one person, more than one family so we discussed the opportunity to have something like a comfort dog,” said Chief Adele Frese.
She is now under the care of a Salinas Police Officer. Over the last few days they’ve been patrolling different parts of Salinas, meeting folks in the community.
“Certainly a dog like this is a wonderful icebreaker for our officers to connect with young people or elderly people and she’s in her own way docile and active enough,” Frese said.
You’ve seen other K9 officers before, they are usually trained to sniff out drugs or take down a bad guy, but not Buddy.
She has a different role — being a buddy, whether acting as an ambassador or providing comfort to those in stressful situations.
“She is a very kind dog, she doesn’t have bad habits,” said Officer Gabe Carvey. “She’s very calm. Immediately upon getting into the patrol car, she nestles into bed and take a nap. She’s very calm, until the point when you tell her, ‘OK, let’s go,’ then she’s very cheery. We’ve met numerous people and kids after calls are under control and everything is good, we’re able to get out of the car and meet kids.”
Chief Adele Frese says the department is trying out a pilot program to see how successful comfort dogs can be in the field. If it works, there are plans to possibly expand it. One way would be to partner up with Animal Control to highlight homeless animals living in the shelter.
