By Charlotte Caldwell
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SIDNEY – The Sidney Police Department’s K-9, Kilo, retired on April 19 after an impressive seven-year career.

Kilo, now 8 years old, has been a member of the department since he was 11 months old. Since then, Kilo’s handler, Officer Jim Jennings, said he has experienced 1,028 deployments for traffic stop narcotics checks. He alerted to narcotics in vehicles during those deployments 572 times, and over 540 times the alerts resulted in narcotics finds or cash. Jennings said those are good statistics for a police K-9.

“The amount of drugs that he’s located is above average and cash. He’s got over half a million dollars of cash seized,” Jennings said.

During his service, Kilo also had to take a month off in 2022 to recover from a broken tail which had to be amputated following an infection and some dental work. Kilo loved to work and still accompanied Jennings most days in his cruiser while he was healing.

Jennings is also retiring in May, leaving an open K-9 handler position. Jennings said another K-9 and handler will go through the training academy in August for the department and the application for that position will open on May 5. The most K-9s the department has had at one time are two, but due to staffing issues, the department will only bring on one currently. Former Police Chief Will Balling bought Kilo in 2016 to have two K-9s – one on day shift and one on night shift – and the total cost was $16,000.