Pit bull mix made officer at police station where she lives

Halo wasn’t the kind of rescue dog everybody wanted, or that anybody wanted, for nearly a year.

Surrendered by her owners after they broke up, Halo, a 6-year-old pit bull mix, was taken in by Rags 2 Riches Animal Rescue in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and placed with a foster family as they waited for someone to see through her quirks to the good girl underneath.

When Upland Borough police Lt. Mickey Curran saw her picture on Facebook, he knew Halo was the dog his department had been looking for.

“She had a snaggletooth and an underbite, and I said, ‘That’s the girl for us!’” Curran recalled. “I said, ‘I know this is unorthodox, but would you be OK with a police department rescuing a dog and with the dog living at the station?’”

Tish Mayo, director of Rags 2 Riches, had never heard of such an arrangement before. “I thought it was wonderful,” she said. “I think dogs belong everywhere.”

Adopted by the entire department, Halo moved into the Upland police station on Castle Avenue in March 2019 and has been living there ever since.

This month, she was officially sworn in as an Upland police officer, making her the first rescue K-9 in the department’s history and the only one in Delaware County, Curran said.

Halo won’t be sniffing out drugs or finding missing bodies as part of her duties; she’ll strictly be working as a community police officer, attending police and borough events and making visitors feel welcome at the station.

Though Halo graciously accepted her new title, she did mistake her swearing-in ceremony for a belly-rub session and offered her tummy instead of her paw to District Justice Georgia Stone as she read her oath in front of the entire police department and Borough Council on July 14. Halo made things official by signing her oath of office with a paw print. She even received an Upland police badge with her name engraved on it, which permanently hangs from her collar now.

“She’s legit,” Curran said of Halo’s police officer status. “She took an oath and put her paw on the Bible and all.”

JESSICA GRIFFIN / PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Lt. Mickey Curran and his colleague K-9 Ofc. Halo get ready to head out of the Upland Borough Police Department, where Halo lives.