La Vergne police officer's prize benefits Tullahoma K-9
City of La Vergne
When La Vergne Police Lt. Eric Staats won the opportunity to provide a ballistic vest to a police K9, there was one problem: every K9 at the La Vergne Police Department already had one.
Staats won the vest last year while attending the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference after being named LPD’s Supervisor of the Year. The prize, provided through Spike’s K9 Fund and Tyler Technologies, is not an off-the-shelf vest. Each vest is fitted and manufactured for the individual K9 that will wear it. Finding that K9 and getting a vest fitted took some time.
“Winning the vest was simply a matter of luck,” Staats said. “Being able to give it to a K9 team that needed it is what makes winning it meaningful.”
Staats reached out to Sgt. Lee Young, a K9 instructor with the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office who trains with K9 teams throughout the region. Ultimately, that inquiry led to Monja, a 2½-year-old Dutch shepherd and a then-recent addition to the Tullahoma Police Department.
Monja received the vest this summer and on Sept. 30 made the approximately hour-long trip to La Vergne with his human partner, Sgt. Travis Dickson, to thank Staats in person and to show off how well he has adjusted to working in the custom-fitted vest. The roughly 60-pound dual-purpose K9, trained in apprehension and tracking as well as drug detection, also enjoyed a back scratch from Staats during his visit.
“It’s a big confidence boost to us, to my guys, knowing that if we do have to send him into a dangerous situation, he’s got that little bit of extra protection,” Dickson, who is also a night-shift supervisor, said. “Our community helped fund a vest for our other K9, but there’s no way we could have afforded this vest on our own.”
For Dickson, the importance of the vest is also personal. He noted that Monja’s vest is no different from the protective vest he and other officers wear.
“I have to put it on every day when I go to work. I’ve got a wife and a little kid I want to come home to every day,” Dickson said. “I want him to come home, too.”
And Monja does go home with Dickson at the end of each shift. Though Dickson only recently became his handler, he said his K9 partner is already family.
The connection between La Vergne and Tullahoma also goes beyond Staats’ decision to direct the vest to Tullahoma. K9 teams routinely train across jurisdictional lines. La Vergne and Tullahoma handlers have traveled to each other’s departments for training, and Dickson also identified Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, and Franklin County among the agencies they train with.
He described the regional K9 community as tight-knit, with handlers supporting one another -- the same network Staats relied on when he began looking for a dog that could use his prize.