By Joanna Putman
Police1
DENVER — A Denver Sheriff’s Department K-9 will not be euthanized as originally planned following an investigative report and community concerns, Denver7 reported.
Sheriff Elias Diggins reviewed the situation after a community member voiced concerns about the fate of K-9 Riggs, a Belgian Malinois trained for the department’s explosives and narcotics division. Diggins announced he decided not to euthanize Riggs on April 24, according to the report.
“I think it takes a community to really bring issues to light. And we appreciate the fact that everyone involved had some concern,” Diggins said. “And we’re glad that this is the path that’s going forward.”
Riggs, who joined the K-9 unit in November 2023, had been showing signs of aggression, such as growling and snapping at his handler’s family, which initially led to the decision to euthanize him.
“We’ve since rethought that,” Diggins stated. “When we got the call that [Denver7] was looking into this… I said, let’s look at this differently. And I made the decision to move in a different direction. … We appreciate all of the folks that were concerned with the path that we were going down.”
The department is now seeking alternatives for Riggs, such as working with partners and law enforcement rescues that specialize in rehoming dogs like him, according to the report.
“We love our dogs. We love them,” Diggins stated. “We all consider every single person who works here, along with our K-9s, members of the greater law enforcement family. And so we don’t take these decisions lightly at all. In fact, they weigh on us heavily.”
Garret Wing, a retired police lieutenant and owner of American Standard Dog Training, spoke to Police1 about the situation involving Riggs.
“There’s almost always a way to find a home for a dog. Euthanasia is beyond the last resort,” Wing told Police1.
Wing said there are measures in place to prevent K-9s from showing signs of aggression, but if the K-9 is not a good fit for the family, the K-9 will most likely be moved to a new handler or potentially a new department.
“When we have these cases where a dog’s a little too much, a little too dominant, aggressive, whatever word you want to use, we’ll reassign it. Now, if we can’t reassign within the unit, then we might reach out to other police departments and say ‘Hey, we have a dog, nice dog all around just not great around children, not great around other pets,’ and we’ll try to assign it out to another department. If that doesn’t work, we can always call the vendor from which we purchased the dog” Wing told Police1.