WATERVILLE — The city’s police department has a new K-9 for the first time in more than 30 years. His name is Riggs, and the 13-month-old dog came to the U.S. from Slovakia, with his own passport.

Police Officer Ryan Dinsmore was chosen, in a competitive process, to be the canine officer for the department. He and the 62-pound German Shepherd will undergo a 14-week training with Maine State Police at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro starting next month.

“He’s been riding around with me,” Dinsmore said Wednesday. “We’ve gone to a few trainings. We do a lot of training at home in our time off. He’s really starting to take to me and I, to him.”

Riggs, who is brown and black, lives with Dinsmore. The dog will be trained in obedience and tracking and apprehending suspects and will take training later on, possibly in the fall, for drug work, according to the officer.

Riggs will be used to help find missing and endangered people, such as older people or those with autism who may wander off, according to police Chief Joseph Massey. The canine also will be used for public relations and educational purposes, as well as for safety of officers. The department often must call the State Police or Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office for the services of a canine, sometimes having to wait for a period of time depending on its availability and proximity to the Waterville site, according to Massey.

“I think this is a great tool for us, all the way around,” Massey said. “It really enhances officer safety because it allows a dog to make contact with suspects or search them out in buildings or other locations where it’s dangerous for officers to go in.”

Massey said a dog also is a great deterrent and useful in getting suspects to come out of buildings.

Riggs was named by Dinsmore, who says it was not a nomenclature he had heard before.

“It just kind of popped into my head, sitting around one night trying to think of a name,” he said. “There’s no real reason behind it.”

Riggs comes to the department as part of efforts by police Sgt. Kyle McDonald, who approached Massey last year with the idea of getting a K-9 because of the frequency with which police were reaching out to other agencies when one was needed. Massey asked McDonald to put a proposal together and said McDonald did a great job researching K-9s, the training required, cost, what types of questions officer candidates for a canine handler should be asked and other related matters.

McDonald even landed a Stanton Foundation K-9 Grant for $32,000 to help purchase and train the dog and retrofit a cruiser for it. That grant is expected to end up totaling about $50,000 in total once Dinsmore and Riggs successfully complete the 14-week training, according to McDonald, who says the dog also may be used to help track bank robbery suspects.

McDonald, accompanied by Massey, made a presentation about the proposed K-9 program to the City Council last month and the council approved it unanimously, launching efforts to acquire the K-9 from Connecticut.

On Feb. 9, McDonald and Dinsmore drove to Naugatuck, Connecticut, where they got Riggs from Black Rock Canines. Maine State Police trainers had previously visited the kennel and chosen it for Waterville police from among several other dogs. The State Police trainers had put the dog through testing to ensure it would be an appropriate dog for the department, according to McDonald.

“It’s something I felt the department and the community would really benefit from,” McDonald said.

The police department last had a K-9 named Ruben, also a German shepherd, in the late 1980s when Massey’s brother, then-Sgt. Jeff Massey, was the canine officer. Joseph Massey said his brother eventually left the department for a career unrelated to law enforcement and that’s when the K-9 program ended.

Dinsmore, 34, has worked at the city’s police department since 2014 and was an officer with Skowhegan Police Department for four years before that. He said he was excited to be able to apply for the K-9 officer position and looks forward to hitting the road, in service, with Riggs when they return from training in June.

“It’s so rare in this career field to get this opportunity,” Dinsmore said. “It was just an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

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