Rambo is township’s newest K-9 officer
LIIMERICK » In this police department, they start them out young.
The latest addition to the roster is just over 2 years old and he’s an immigrant to boot.
His name is Rambo, he is a Belgian Malinois and he is Limerick’s newest K-9 officer, and although he is now a law enforcement officer in the good old U.S. of A., he only speaks German or Dutch.
Rambo was born in Germany and moved to the United States when he was a little over a year old and was nearly finished with training to work for the FBI, when they hit a little snag.
For perfectly understandable reasons, Rambo does not like to jump out of helicopters.
“The FBI had him for about two months and the only issue he had is he doesn’t like jumping out of helicopters,” his handler Officer Chris Weinczek said.
“I figured Limerick Township is not buying a helicopter any time soon,” Police Chief Brian Skelton joked when Rambo was introduced to the township supervisors for the first time at the Sept. 18 meeting. “So I sent Chris to Virginia and we grabbed him quick.”
Skelton said they even beat the state police to the punch, who were also interested in acquiring Rambo.
“Part of their training is his handler is supposed to be able to rappel from a helicopter with him strapped to the front. He didn’t like being picked up by somebody else, so when they picked him up he started punching them in the face with his muzzle. So they said they didn’t want that. It’s something they could have trained out of him, but the FBI has an endless amount of money, so they just said we’ll get another dog,” Weinczek said. “So we got him.”
“He’s been great, his detection work in training is unbelievable. His apprehension work in training is unbelievable. And his tracking is great, so I can’t wait to put him to the test in real life,” Weinczek said.
“We got lucky,” Skelton said. “The FBI is always looking for the best dogs.”
Rambo has been working on the road for a few weeks now with Wienczek. The two spent eight weeks training together at the Progressive K9 Training Academy in Allentown and completed training in June. Rambo is trained in narcotics detection and patrol. “He is a work dog only and is not approachable by the public, Wienczek warned. “His primary function is to protect me and he’ll do that at all costs, whether we’re standing here or we’re in the car.”
“You have to give credit to these officers. This is a 24/7 responsibility and those dogs home with them when the shift is over,” Skelton said.
The department has one other canine officer named Flynn.
“Flynn will let me pet him. I can’t do that with Rambo yet,” Skelton said.
This article first appeared as a post in The Digital Notebook blog.