The Illinois K-9 Police Department has recently mentioned their intentions of euthanizing dogs who are on the force. Currently, there are approximately 275 dogs who work for the police department in Illinois.
Their main job is to find narcotics. However, with marijuana potentially becoming legal in Illinois, the police department are beginning to feel like they won’t need the dogs anymore.
According to Chad Larner, the director of Maron County’s K-9 Training Academy, each dog costs the department thousands of dollars. Spending the time to retrain these dogs to be able to live in our regular society would be “extreme abuse”.
Citizens from all over the country are objecting to their request, stating that the police department would not shoot human police for “being too expensive”. They are demanding that the dogs be put up for adoption or retire, where they can live the rest of their lives relaxing and in peace. T
hese dogs are sworn into the police academy, just like humans are, and society does not believe they should be treated any differently.
The police academy has responded to these statements, stating that “these dogs are also trained against being social in order to be effective workers” and that it is inevitable that numerous dogs would need to be euthanized if marijuana ever did become legal.