Police celebrate retirement of K-9 Atza
Retirement party held following last day of duty
Atza and Officer Chris Hall.
–The City of Atascadero and the Atascadero Police Department held a retirement celebration for K-9 Atza, who served on the police force for many years.
Atza joined the Atascadero Police Department through the Guadalupe police department where he served their department as a police service dog. Atza and Officer Chris Hall were partners in Guadalupe before Hall was hired by the Atascdero police department. Soon thereafter, Atza and Hall were reunited as a team at APD.
Atza has served the community in a number of capacities. He has looked for missing kids and adults, found criminal suspects and located significant amounts of illegal narcotics. Atza has also served as an ambassador for the city and the department on a number of occasions with community events, school functions and fundraising for the K-9 program.
The police canines at the APD come from Germany where they are trained in the sport of Schutzhund (protection) at a young age. The dogs are selected between 1 ½ to 3-years-old and they are brought to the United States to begin their police dog careers. Our canines are trained at Inglis Police Dog Academy for a couple of months and then they are paired with police canine handlers. The canine and their police officer handlers spend five weeks of intensive training to meet or exceed the police dog/handler standards. There are specialty schools that the canine and handler can attend for narcotics and weapons and bomb detection. Police dogs typically continue with the same handler throughout their career life which is usually around seven years. When the dog retires, he is sold to the handler who will take care of his former partner over the rest of the canine’s life.
Hall has been selected to be the next canine handler in May, so he will continue to serve in that capacity with a new K-9 partner.
For further information regarding Atza, please call the Atascadero Police Department, Commander Allen or Officer C. Hester at (805) 461-5051.
