Frank, a German Shepherd and recent police dog training grad, joins the Niles police K9 team

Chicago Tribune

2 days ago

After beginning the TOPS Police K9 Training Program at TOPS Kennel in Grayslake on April 14, Niles police Officer Jesse Bloomberg and his canine partner, an all-black German Shepherd named Frank, graduated on June 6.
'I was in a class with a bunch of other agencies. Then, essentially you get paired with a dog based on your home life, your personality and your activity level – like if you're hyper, not hyper or a more mellow person. I got paired with Frank,' Bloomberg told Pioneer Press.
He said training involved 12-hour days Monday through Friday for eight weeks.
'It consisted of obedience, suspect apprehension – so biting, narcotics, building searches, article searches, tracking. Frank's favorite was obstacles – going through tubes, teeter-totters, unstable surfaces and using his balance and athleticism to get through the obstacles,' Bloomberg said.
Previously assigned to patrol, Frank is now with investigations and is part of a tactical team that is a narcotics unit.
'Frank will be used by patrol and also be used to assist other agencies that are surrounding Niles for any calls of service that require a canine,' Bloomberg said.
Those calls, he said, could be from anywhere in Cook County including the Des Plaines, Glenview, Park Ridge and Skokie police departments seeking assistance to track missing juveniles or elderly, or to determine on a traffic stop if there is probable cause to search a vehicle for narcotics.
'A canine's ability at smell is like 100,000 times stronger than a human's,' Bloomberg said. 'It's essentially another tool to keep officers safe. If we have to apprehend somebody, officers don't have to go hands-on, you can just deploy a dog if need be.'
He said the public will have several chances to meet Frank, including demonstrations on July 15 for Niles Police Department Junior Police Academy students, Aug. 5 for National Night Out and on Sept. 13 during the police department's open house.
According to Bloomberg, he and his partner have to do a minimum of 16 hours of training monthly, coordinated by TOPS Kennel, to maintain K-9 certification.
Frank is a normal dog at the Bloomberg home, where the officer and his wife also have a cat named Misses.
'As a kid I always wanted to have a companion that was a partner,' Bloomberg said.
When he was growing up in Skokie, Bloomberg's family dog was a German Shepherd named Charlie and was trained on the civilian side at TOPS Kennel. But the investigator and canine handler said Frank, which was born in the Czech Republic, is his first police dog.
Prior to becoming a Niles police officer, Bloomberg was a paramedic and firefighter for five years in Wisconsin and then worked for the Chicago Police Department about two years.
'When I started to work with Niles, I looked up to the current canine handlers,' Bloomberg said.
When he joined the Niles Police Department two years ago, the Canine Unit consisted of Ace, a German Shepherd, and his handler, Sgt. Chris Koch, and Shadow, a German Shepherd and Belgian Malinois mix, and his handler, who works with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Bloomberg said Ace retired Jan. 17 after more than seven years of service with the Niles Police Department.
'Ace's primary duty was to serve Niles but he also worked diligently statewide from Chicago all the way to Kewanee, Illinois, and as far as Indiana,' Bloomberg said.
K-9 Shadow will mark his second anniversary with the Niles Police Department in September.