Mt. Lebanon welcomes new four-legged officer
Jon Andreassi/Observer-Reporter
Mt. Lebanon Police Officer Daniel McBride and his K9, Bear. Bear joined the department earlier this month.
Jon Andreassi/Observer-Reporter
Daniel McBride and Bear stand outside the Mt. Lebanon Police Department. Bear is named for Officer Jerrod Withrow, who died last year from colon cancer.
The residents of Mt. Lebanon may notice a new officer on patrol — one with four legs and a powerful nose.
That would be the police department’s new K9, Bear.
Bear is a 14-month-old, scent discriminant bloodhound. He is named for Mt. Lebanon Officer Jerrod “Bear” Withrow, who died last year of colon cancer.
“(Withrow) was hardworking, funny, a good guy. He always had a smile on his face. He was there for you, he was a good friend,” said Officer Daniel McBride, who is Bear’s handler. “He was a great father and worked hard for his kids. It was definitely a big loss when that happened.”
The $22,000 needed to purchase Bear was raised entirely through donations from the public. Two of the largest donors were Gail and Randy Withrow, Jerrod’s parents.
Mt. Lebanon Police Department purchased Bear from Tin Star K9, located in Rockton, Ill.
Bear is the department’s fourth K9, and the first bloodhound. McBride explained that the breed’s powerful sense of smell makes them ideal dogs for a densely populated community like Mt. Lebanon.
“We get a lot of calls for missing individuals. We have a big elderly population, we have a lot of care facilities in town with different dementia wards. We have a lot of kids too,” McBride said. “In addition to that, obviously we have crimes that happen where people flee the scene, and it’s important to locate them for whatever it may be.”
While other patrol dogs have smell-based abilities, bloodhounds are able to discriminate between two different scents.
“If two separate people walked the same way, we could tell that bloodhound which person we want. A lot of the patrol dogs aren’t trained that way,” McBride said.
Mt. Lebanon is all of six square miles. In a dense, walking community, McBride explained that previous dogs would not be able to pick a person out of a crowd.
“We decided based on calls and deployments that we’ve had, along with other things going on in the community … that the bloodhound would be most beneficial for our department and for the community. And surrounding agencies, because they’re not many (bloodhounds) around,” McBride said.
The move to Mt. Lebanon has been an adjustment for Bear, who had been living on a farm in Illinois with other dogs. McBride said he is acclimating well, but he is still not entirely used to the loud noises coming from garbage trucks and construction vehicles.
“We’re changing his owner, his living environment, the air smells different,” McBride said. “All these kinds of things we have to take into account, but since we’ve been back, we’ve made a ton of progress.”
When off duty, Bear lives at home with McBride, who describes him as a “goofball.”
“Now that we’ve been here for a few weeks, his true personality is starting to come back out. That goofiness and playfulness is coming out,” McBride said. “It’s like a person. He’s kind of goofy and playful and then when it’s time to go to work, he’s focused and he’s on it.”