Rochester celebrates retirement of two K-9 officers

ROCHESTER — Two of the Rochester Police Department’s four-legged members have retired.

During a recent meeting, the Rochester City Council honored K-9s Kitt and Pearl — who both worked with K-9 handler Sgt. Michael Knight — for their years of service.

Kitt retired from the Rochester Police Department on July 28, 2023, after almost seven years of service.

“We all know seven years of dog time is times seven, so that’s almost 50 years of service,” said Rochester Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Salvia.

Kitt, a German shepherd from Slovakia, first came to the city in October 2016 and served as the department’s tracking, handler protection and narcotics detection dog.

City officials said Kitt “had a reputation for being a superior tracking dog” and was “often sought out for cases.”

“During K-9 Kitt’s first week of service, (he) confiscated enough forfeiture money to pay for his entire training,” Salvia noted.

Pearl retired from the Rochester Police Department Jan. 1, after almost five years of service.

Pearl, a Labrador retriever, served as the department’s explosives detection dog.

“In her role as an explosive detection K-9, she was on the scene at Oxford High School shortly after the shooting and was instrumental in clearing the school by making sure it was safe from any explosive devices,” Salvia said.

The city of Rochester transferred the ownership of the two dogs to Knight and his family, who adopted the two dogs following their retirements.

“We know this is really a family affair. While the dogs were in service, it was really the family (taking care of them), and now they get to continue their joy in their retirement,” said Salvia.

Former Rochester Police Chief Steve Schettenhelm said K-9 training is a continual process that involves everyday training.

“With a K-9 officer, they are training every single day, regardless of whether it’s an off day or a work day. They are working all the time, and there is that team behind the scenes that are also working on that care and feeding and making sure that they’re ready to go to work every day. The Knight family is certainly responsible for the success of these two K-9s and everything they’ve been able to bring to the city and to the area. They don’t always just help here. They have been essential in helping various departments all around the metropolitan area, whether it be for narcotic searches, tracking and … for explosive detection work all over the area. Certainly my thanks to the Knight family, as well as Kitt and Pearl,” Schettenhelm said.

Officer James Penman was named the department’s next K-9 handler. Chief George Rouhib said the next five-week K-9 Academy through Oakland County starts in May.

“At the end of the month, Officer Penman and Sgt. Knight will be going down to Pennsylvania to a kennel where most of the handlers get their dogs from, so they will go there, look at all the dogs, try to get familiar with them and then, hopefully, we can pick one out of the litter that will work well for our city.”

Once a puppy is picked, Rouhib said, it goes to an experienced handler from another agency for initial training, and once deemed ready, will then be turned over to the Rochester Police Department for training with Penman at the five-week academy.

“Our dog will be trained in narcotics detection and tracking,” Rouhib explained. “After those five weeks, the dog will be in service in the community, we hope.”

Upon graduating from the academy, Rouhib said, K-9 training will be a continual process that involves everyday training, tracking, area searches, article searches, narcotics work and more.