The Ogle County Sheriff’s Office K-9 Unit on Tuesday demonstrated K-9 Gator and K-9 Saint’s abilities to the Creston Village Board of Trustees.

The K-9s’ handlers, Deputies Kyle White and Ali VanVickle, thanked the board for a recent donation it made to the sheriff’s office that was allocated to the K-9 fund, which is supported solely by donations and self-funding.

The K-9 unit will be making another demonstration at 11:15 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, at Booster Park in Creston during Creston Booster Days. The demonstration on Sept. 2 also was made to raise awareness of the program’s Ogle County K-9 Fund Bark and Whine Ball that will take place from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, at River’s Edge Experience, 103 S. First St. in Oregon.

The event will include live music by The Vodka Boys, food catered by Ralfie’s BBQ, a silent auction and a 50/50 raffle. Tickets are still available and can be bought at the Ogle County Sheriff’s Office, Merlin’s Greenhouse & Flowers and Cork & Tap.

White is K-9 Gator’s handler and VanVickle handles K-9 Saint. Expenses for the K-9 program include food, veterinary bills, training, equipment and future K-9 acquisitions. The program recently purchased a third K-9 for a new handler.

The initial cost for a K-9 and its training is about $14,000 to $16,000. Most of the dogs come from Europe. Along with food and vet bills, expenses also include training, which is required for 16 hours a month. VanVickle and White estimate they do another 20 hours of training on top of that, combined, per month. K-9s cost about $5,000 to $6,000 per year to maintain.

K-9s Saint and Gator are dual-purpose dogs. They can track and find narcotics, as well as track missing people such as a child, an elderly person or a crumbs suspect. They can search buildings, and they are apprehension dogs and are trained to bite when situations call for it. They also can find evidence, such as items that suspects have thrown in a chase situation.

The Sept. 2 demonstration in Creston included commands and bites by K-9s Gator and Saint.

“Due to an increase in calls, we’re using the dogs for one good call a shift,” VanVickle said. “That has included things like tracking a domestic violence victim because they were scared of the offender, and tracking two people that were intoxicated and injured. There are all kinds of things these dogs can do that we can’t even think about doing.”