Paws Of The Law Joins Suffolk County Sheriff K9 Ranks

Suffolk County Sheriff's Office welcomes its first female K9 officer, a two-year-old narcotics-sniffing dog with a nose for trouble. There's a new sheriff's dog in town, and she's already making history. Meet Zoe, a two-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer who has officially joined the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office as its first female K9.

Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. welcomed the department's newest four-legged crimefighter during a November 5 ceremony in Yaphank, presenting Zoe with her official shield before a demonstration showcasing her narcotics-detection training. Originally from the Netherlands, Zoe has a serious assignment ahead: sniffing out illegal drugs inside Suffolk County's two correctional facilities.

Her responsibilities include searching inmate housing units, inspecting packages and patrolling during visitation sessions to help prevent narcotics from entering the jails. Zoe joins the Sheriff's Office K9 operation, which has a decades-long history of using specially trained dogs to support law enforcement and correctional security.

The Sheriff's Corrections Division operates two major facilities: the Riverhead Correctional Facility, with a maximum capacity of 840 incarcerated individuals, and the Yaphank Correctional Facility, which can accommodate 976. The department's K9 operation falls under the Special Operations Bureau, which also includes the Sheriff's Emergency Response Team, Internal Security, Gangs Unit and Hostage Negotiations Team.

The Sheriff's Office has employed working dogs since the 1970s. In 2019, the agency honored 12 K9s that had died in service with a memorial outside the Riverhead correctional facility.