Home Antioch Antioch Resident Launches Fundraiser for Antioch Police K9 Unit

Antioch Resident Launches Fundraiser for Antioch Police K9 Unit

by ECT

Antioch resident and business owner Tim McCall, Genesis Landscape, has launched a fundraiser to help support the Antioch Police Department K9 unit.

McCall is hoping the community can help him raise $28,000 for a new police dog.

After living in Antioch for 34-years, McCall was looking to get involved in the community to help find a way to make things better and attended the most recent Citizens Academy put on by the police department.

Participants of the academy will be given the opportunity to experience some of the activities Law Enforcement Officers and department personnel perform as part of their duties. Hands-on experiences include fingerprinting, and problem solving. Interact with our K-9 and handler, and ride-along with an officer.

McCall took notice at the K9 unit which serves as great importance to police officers which is down to 4-dogs, leaving two shifts without a k9 on duty.

“During Citizen’s Academy I learned the importance of the work the dog does. They save the city a considerable amount of money if that’s even the concern,” explained McCall. “The work they do saves lives, removes dangerous criminals off our streets and locates missing children and evidence.”

McCall noted recently, two major incidents were resolved thanks to the K9 assistance–a carjacking out of Oakland that ended up in Antioch. They also tracked a suspect to a truck of a vehicle during a search which otherwise officers may not have located the suspect.

“Antioch police is understaffed and a K9 can do the work of several officers. Antioch police is underfunded and even with measure C needs additional funds,” said McCall. “When I spoke to Chief Brooks, he stated a new dog was needed and they are looking for funding.”

Chief Tammany Books said Thursday that although a police dog costs the city roughly $28,000, they are currently not funded and not in this years budget because they had not planned on premature k9 retirements and promotions of officers.

Chief Brooks said he was thankful for the efforts of McCall and members of the community who have donated.

“I am supportive of his, or anyone else’s legitimate efforts to raise money for programs that benefit our agency and our community,” said Brooks.

To donate: www.gofundme.com/K9yes


On Feb 14, 2018, Antioch Police K9 unit visits Mission Elementary School


The K9 Unit is called in instances when either a dangerous call is in progress, such as a burglary, robbery, or vehicle pursuit.  The dogs are able to clear areas before officers approach on foot and perform area, canyon, or building searches for fleeing and hidden suspects. All K9s are trained in the areas of protection, searching, tracking, article searching and narcotics detection. The use of the K9s in our department enhances not only our efficiency, but our effectiveness in our efforts to apprehend criminal violators, locating missing persons and the locating of crucial items of evidence. All donations will go to purchase and train a new K9 unit for the Antioch Police Department.

Q. What is a K9 Officer?

A. A police dog, known in some English-speaking countries as a “K-9” or “K9” (a homophone of “canine”), is a dog that is specifically trained to assist police and other law-enforcement personnel.

Q. What do K9 Officers do?

A. K9 Officers are used to locate and subdue suspects or enemies, to provide security for sensitive or controlled areas, to locate suspects or find missing people or objects and to detect illicit substances such as drugs or explosives which may be carried on a person or in their effects.

Q. Why are dogs used for police work?

A. A dog team can search an area 50 times faster than a human and can smell up to 500,000 times better with a much-enhanced degree of certainty. A dog could smell a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water. K9s can differentiate between identical twins. Police Dogs Can Smell A Human Buried Up To 12 Feet Underground. K9s Have Been Trained To Sniff Out Electronics Like Hard Drives, Thumb Drives, And Other Pieces Of Technology To Find Illegal Data. For example, humans can smell beef stew cooking, whereas a K9 smells individual ingredients like the onions, carrots, and thyme. For that reason K9s are used to sweep venues for explosives, search buildings for narcotics and apprehend suspects on the run. These characteristics make K9 officers very valuable to our police departments.

Q. Where does a K9 Officer live?

A. While at work, the K9s are the officer’s partner. After work, they go home with the officers where they are truly part of the officer’s family. They enjoy the family home and family outings just like any other traditional pet. To say the least, the bond that develops between the officer and the canine is quite strong.

Q. Who pays for the K9s food, medical and other needs.

A. The handler takes care of the K9 just as you would love your own pet.

Q. How long does it take to train a K9 Officer?

A. A dog is chosen for their special characteristics. Once chosen, it takes about 10 weeks to train one.

Q. How long does a K9 Officer work for the police department?

A. Police K9 office has an average career of 6 to 8 years.

Q. What happens to a K9 Officer once he is no longer able to work?

A. The K9 Handler is allowed to purchase the dog for $1.00. The dog will continue to live with the officer as a family pet.

Q. Why should I donate to help purchase a new K9?

A. Most police departments are under funded and have many positions that need filling. A K9 can save a city money and can do the work of several human officers. K9s save lives, find missing children and take dangerous criminals off the street. The question is, what are you waiting for?

You may also like

8 comments

Simonpure Feb 23, 2018 - 1:00 pm

28 grand…wow. Must be the training involved. Seems excessive but I’m in.

Tim McCall Feb 23, 2018 - 1:28 pm

Thank you!! $28,000 includes the purchase of the dog, training for the dog and handler as well as a protection vest to keep the dog safe while at work. Your donations will make a difference.

A. Spears Feb 23, 2018 - 3:35 pm

Why not go to K9 Specialized Training and Consulting located in Oakley, CA? Dave Dorn not only use to work for the Antioch PD but trains and sells Duel Purpose K9’s with Handler school for $12,500. His k9’s are 100% proven, guaranteed and are extremely sociable as well. Quality does not have to come at the expense of the Community! Dave works extremely hard to provide Quality working K9’s, training and maintenance training at a fair price because he understands the importance of these dogs to our communities and loves what he does. Check out his page at http://www.k9stac.com or give him a call. Very high quality k9’s that will undoubtedly get the job done and love doing it without taxing the community. Several acencies in the area go through him from the local level to State and Federal as well. He speaks all over the Country and has several published articles on K9 problem solving and deployment. Highest price does not guarantee highest quality.

Haus Krotter working dogs Feb 23, 2018 - 3:43 pm

K9 Specialized training and consulting is located in Antioch/Oakley
They should contact them

Lola Saavedra Feb 28, 2018 - 2:09 am

You can’t just use any dog (a Chihuahua?) for this type of work. Most of the dogs come from Europe! They are a breed of Shepherds which are extremely intelligent and have the DNA which makes them very desirable for police work. This comes from extensive breeding.

Nan Kreeger Feb 23, 2018 - 4:33 pm

Antioch Police Dept. runs the Antioch animal shelter. How about using some of those ‘Pound Pups’ for K9 work?. Other police stations are using Pittbulls as well. Save $$. Save a Life.

Dg Feb 23, 2018 - 9:50 pm

I agree with Nan all the way!

Tim McCall Feb 24, 2018 - 8:36 am

Thank you all for your comments and interest in helping. I personally am not involved in the decisions of purchasing the specialized K9s nor do I make policy. As a long term resident of Antioch, what I am doing is gathering and providing badly needed funding so that those who do make those decisions have resources to do their jobs. Even if dogs from our local pound were able to be trained there are still great costs involved in that training. In fact, for a pound dog, which is very unlikely to be able to do police work, the training would be considerably more than that of the specialized dogs which are better suited for this type of work. Remember, APD is short 2 dogs. They have 4 and run 6 shifts. This means 2 shifts a day run without the help of a K9 officer. The money I am raising is ALL going to APD for the specific purpose of funding K9s. If I raise more than what is needed for the training, purchase and arming of 1 dog, then we get to look at purchasing the 2nd dog. Wouldn’t that be awesome?!!! I hope everyone sees the benefit and is willing to give a small donation. I am not asking anything that I haven’t already done and, if you look on the GoFundMe.com/k9yes page, you will see many have donated very generously. Those that have taken the time to read all the information, talk with me and understand what this program means for our city have been in full support including their money and time. Thanks again, please consider how you can help.

Comments are closed.