Indiana State Police mark first graduation of K-9 academy - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Indiana State Police graduated a K-9 class Friday morning.

The four dogs and their State Police handlers received top honors at Pershing Auditorium after months of training.

It is not just the K-9s that graduated. Their trooper handlers are moving into the K-9 unit for the first time, and they had to learn to take special care of the dogs in this extreme heat.

"You had to be real careful especially these last couple of weeks with the heat.The dogs get real hot and we're doing, basically training these dogs for these 12 weeks here. It's like someone going through two days of football practices. So they get tired just like we do, so you really just gotta watch them and make sure they've got plenty of water and make sure the car is always running with the air conditioning on," said Trooper Seth Rainey, Evansville district, ISP.

This is the first graduating class of the K-9 Training Academy.

The four German Shepherds, which cost $ 5,500 each, were purchased in Michigan with funds donated to the ISP K-9 program. Funding has been donated from a variety of sources throughout Indiana including community foundations, -prosecutor's offices and the Tony Stewart Foundation. The ISP K-9 program is self supporting and does not rely on taxpayer support.

Assignments are as follows:

Trooper Kyle Freeman and K-9 Smoke, District 52, Indianapolis

Trooper Ryan Winters and K-9 Bosco, District 14, Lafayette

Trooper Seth Rainey and K-9 Teague, District 35, Evansville

Trooper Matt Wilson and K-9 Barrett, District 51, Pendleton