Marquette Police’s “Top Dog” gets sworn in

MARQUETTE — The Marquette City Police Department welcomed its newest member at the Marquette City Commission meeting Tuesday night.

Nitro is the latest four–legged friend to join the police force.  Nitro was certified by the National Association of Professional K-9 handlers, will specialize with explosives, and was trained by members of the Marquette police.

“We’re actually adding more tools to our toolbox,” Sergeant Mathias Munger with the Marquette City Police Department said. “We’ve actually already had two calls with this dog so far, and he’s going to be beneficial and pay for himself in a short period of time.”

“A lot of the stuff we got (to help train Nitro) was from other communities. Escanaba Public Safety provided us with a magazine for the storage of our explosives, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department provided us with our first set of explosives at no cost, and we also obtained the dog at a very reasonable price, compared to a dog we purchased before—our other dogs.”

Nitro is a one-year-old black lab, and was purchased earlier this year from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department.