By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Thirty children learned that heroes don’t always have to walk around on two feet Friday afternoon. The Bucyrus Public Library held a special event as part of its summer reading program and invited Bucyrus police officer David Rowland and K9 officer Rosco to talk about the work the dog does for the police department.
“This summer’s reading program theme is every hero has a story and as part of that program we wanted to bring in local heroes,” explained children’s librarian Barb Scott. “Well, local heroes sometimes have more than two legs so we thought that the K9 unit was a perfect fit.”
The children gathered in a half circle around Rowland and Rosco as the officer explained the training he and Rosco had to go through, both individually and together. Rosco was sworn in as a K9 officer just one week ago but he’s already been busy. Rowland said the 19-month-old Belgian Malinois has been involved in numerous traffic stops and was a part of the drug bust on Maple Street last week.
Rosco was imported from Belgium and received additional training at Tri-State Canine Services in Warren, Ohio. Rowland even had to learn Dutch commands in a Dutch accent to be Rosco’s handler. Rosco has been trained to detect the five most common drugs and how to apprehend suspects.
Rowland has undergone some changes since taking over as Rosco’ handler. “It’s a whole different level of commitment because now it’s not just the job and watching myself, it’s watching him too,” Rowland said. “It’s definitely a partnership, a 24/7 thing. It’s on-duty, off-duty every day. Definitely a lot more time into the job than typical.”
He also thought it was helpful to introduce Rosco to the children. “I want the community to know we have the tools to take back the town, so to speak,” noted Rowland. “I want them familiar with him so they don’t have any fear of him but also to know what he’s capable of. I think it’s a great idea to do that.”
Sheryl Moran-Amesquita brought her two children, nine-year-old Faith and seven-year-old Dominick, to the program. Both kids and their mother asked Rowland multiple questions.
“I think that it’s important because working dogs are very different from pet dogs and for children to understand that we use pets in our everyday society in a way that benefits society other than being pets,” said Moran-Amesquita. “I do think it was a good program for them.”
Dominick was really impressed by Rosco. “I thought, wow, he’s been really good, he hasn’t been mean the whole time,” Dominick said.
Rosco calmly sat by Rowland as the handler allowed the children to come up one at a time to pet Bucyrus’ newest K9 hero.
“I think it went fantastically,” said Scott. “There were really thoughtful questions from the kids, there was a lot of interest from the adults as well and it’s definitely something we’d consider doing again.”