Canine Section officers and their four-legged partners are critical to the department.

To become patrol-certified, all of our canines complete basic training which includes criminal apprehension, evidence recovery, obedience and tracking.

Each dog also receives specialty training in one of three areas: Narcotics, Explosives Detection and Human Remains Detection.

Additionally, one of our canines works at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma as an explosives detection dog with a specialty in vapor wake. Most recently, the department had its first and only dog canine trained in Electronic Security Device Detection (ESDD). ESSD is a relatively new discipline, developed approximately 10 years ago by Connecticut State Police. ESDD dogs are trained to sniff out triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO), a chemical specific to all electronic devices including thumb drives, hard drives, computers, cell phones and tablets, items that sometimes can get overlooked during searches by humans, depending on how well the items are concealed.

When our canines are not busy with police work, they often visit schools to showcase the importance of working dogs.