Lately, a four-legged companion has been joining Leelanau County Deputy Jordan Strope on day patrol. Keno, a German Shepherd born in Slovakia and trained in Ludington, moved in with Strope just before Christmas and the two have been living and working together ever since.
Keno was trained by Fresh Coast K-9 in Ludington in narcotics detection, patrol tactics, and tracking suspects or missing persons. While the pair are already worked in the field together — Strope mentioned that his police dog alerted him to drugs in a vehicle while on patrol as recently as April 5 — they are continuing their training together as Strope exposes Keno to new locations.
“Dogs have to see it to be able to do it again, so ‘site pictures’ are huge for them,” Strope explained. “They’re not going to be able to do what I’m asking them if they haven’t seen the site before.”
Earlier this month, the newspaper joined the K-9 unit down in Benzonia at the old Crystal Lake Elementary. The building no longer hosts classes, as students have transitioned to Homestead Hills Elementary, but the nowunused hallways and classrooms offer a good training environment for police dogs from Leelanau, Grand Traverse, and Benzie counties, among others.
K-9 units took turns entering the building and searching for drugs like fentanyl, heroin, and meth that had been planted by trainers earlier. When it came time for them to enter, Strope ordered Keno to “suche” — Keno responds to police commands in German — for drugs, and when he found the illegal substances hidden in school lockers and classrooms, he would sit and look to his handler. When he found the planted drugs, Strope rewarded him by letting him play with his toy ball.
The sheriff office’s other police dog, Klouse, joined Keno for training in Benzonia last Wednesday, despite working with the county since 2021 and clearly being visibly more relaxed during the search. This was partly because Klouse needed a refresher, but also to continue to get him acquainted with his new partner, Deputy Cameron Drzewiecki.
“We control what they want, and they want their toy, and they have to do something for us to get the toy. It’s like a game for them — if I do this task, if I find this odor, I get my ball. They don’t know they’re finding drugs. They just know they’re finding this smell that’s known to them, and they’re getting this toy as a reward,” Drzewiecki said.
Klouse’s previous handler, Ryan Lott, retired late last year and transferred to living and working Drzewiecki around the time that Keno started doing the same with Strope. Klouse and Keno are the second and third police dogs to work in the sheriff ’s office respectively. Their first police dog, Nico, started in 2013 and retired in 2020.
County Sheriff Mike Borkovich also invited the newspaper to join a K-9 unit for the “real thing”: a visit to one of the county’s schools. These events present an opportunity for community outreach and education as their handlers can inform students about the dangers of illegal drug use while they meet the police dogs.
While at least some students must be as easily charmed by dogs with jobs as this reporter, and the K-9 units have reportedly found some success in detecting illegal drugs while out on day and night patrol in the county, these benefits to the sheriff’s office don’t come for free.
The sheriff’s office purchased Keno along with five weeks of handler training for Strope for $17,000, following the county board of commissioners’ approval in September. Keno’s introduction to the force also required them to upfit a patrol vehicle to carry him, and equipment like kennels, leashes, leads, and bowels for a further $12,000, bringing the total cost for his initial setup to about $29,000.
And since Keno needs constant practice to keep his narcotics detection, patrol, and tracking skills sharp — he has to “use it or lose it,” as Deputy Strope puts it –— additional training costs will be incurred throughout his time on the police force.
The sheriff’s office uses donated funds — primarily raised through annual golf outings — to cover the costs of its K-9-unit program. Over $27,000 in donations were raised last year alone. When the sheriff’s office requested approval to purchase Keno in September, there was over $50,000 in the office’s K-9-unit donation account.
This was “more than enough to sustain this request and still leave enough money in the account for future purposes,” Undersheriff James Kiessel said in executive documents. The office’s third annual golf outing, to be held at the Manitou Passage Golf Club on June 7, is sure to raise even more funds.
The amount of donations raised for the K-9 units last year is sourced from the sheriff’s office recently published 2023 annual report, which included incident statistics and revenue sources for the department. According to the document, the sheriff’s office spent over $3.6 million last year. The county’s 2024 budget allocates almost $2.7 million to the office.
Further breakdowns on how county taxpayer money is being spent, and the types of crime the sheriff’s office is facing within the county, will be the subject of future coverage.
