Zulu and Voodoo continue LPD’s K9 program

LACONIA — Some of the police department’s newest officers have four legs, not two.

Laconia police acquired two American Labradors this fall, and they, alongside their handlers, are already working the city streets.

The department’s longtime working dog Abby is transitioning to retirement. A 9.5-year-old Belgian Malinois from the Netherlands, he’s served the city admirably for seven years. His handler, Patrol Officer Kyle Jepsen, will keep Abby at home from now on. 

“He’s retired, living the good life now,” Jepsen said. “He earned it.”

The police department's newest K9 recruits are Zulu and Voodoo. Their handlers, patrol officers Autumn Bettez and Alicia Larsen, are excited to continue the program. Zulu is 1 year old, and Voodoo is 18 months old. Their typical career lasts seven or eight years.

“I’ve wanted to be a handler for my whole life,” Larsen said at the Laconia Police Department on Friday. The officers were completing a training session and introduced The Laconia Daily Sun to the new dogs.

Bettez met Jepsen while she was a college intern at the Laconia Police Department in 2019, and learned what the K9 program was all about. She knew then she’d like to do the same work one day.

“We’re very lucky to have two officers dedicated to take on this responsibility,” Chief Matt Canfield said.

And it is a big responsibility. K9 officers work and live with their dogs, full-time.

“It expands our capabilities,” Canfield said. The department has partnered with New Hampshire State Police, so the new dogs are trained in explosive ordinance disposal, meaning they’re trained to find bombs. They’re also trained in tracking and detecting firearms and shell casings. “Their abilities are pretty broad.”

Laconia got the dogs in early October, traveling down to North Carolina where K2K9 Solutions raises dogs specifically for law enforcement. The officers spent time there, getting matched with their new partners.

The police department held an internal selection process for candidates to become the new K9 handlers, and Bettez and Larsen came out on top.

Aside from the typical duties of a working dog commonly depicted in television programs and movies, these dogs are able to track individuals with Alzheimer's and missing or lost children, too.

“These K9s are more than capable of tracking and assisting in that fashion,” Canfield said.

“Labs are great trackers, actually,” Jepsen said.

But police work in general has changed, and so have working dogs’ duties. Abby, for example, was trained in drug detection. Zulu and Voodoo are not, and that has a lot to do with the changing criminal environment with respect to narcotics. A sniff of fentanyl could greatly endanger a police K9.

“I’m really excited to expand the program,” Jepsen said. “That’s going with the times in law enforcement in general.”

Jepsen will remain involved in managing the K9 program and assisting in training with Larsen, Bettez and the department’s new dogs. They’ll be involved in community policing events in the future, too.

The department will hold a formal retirement ceremony for Abby early next year.

The dogs supplement what the department has to offer to neighboring and partner agencies, too, providing a benefit to citizens inside and outside of city limits.

“The added benefit to policing is very big,” Canfield said.