Sheriff Sends K-9s to Ripon Top Dog Training Center

Ripon K9 officer Kyle Prather and his new four-legged partner Argos joined the San Joaquin County

K-9 Officer Kyle Prather & Partner Argos

Sheriff’s Office and its police dog teams at the Top Dog Police K9 Training and Consulting center in Ripon recently.

The training center has contracted with 26 agencies in Central and Northern California under the direction of Ron Cloward a retired police lieutenant. Cloward said his training center wants their K9 grads to do their jobs but also to remain friendly to the public. The center is located amid two almond orchards west of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church at Carrolton Avenue and Highway 120.

The multi-story home location is used for both organized classes and search areas in the basement lower level where many rooms have been constructed for K9 search challenges for the dogs and their handlers during their 8-week courses.

“Argos” along with the other K9s was being taught the skills of locating drugs in the course of his day in the Ripon patrol car of his officer as well as being an aggressive but friendly, defending and tracking German Shepherd.

Officer Prather is pictured with his canine partner as he searches for illegal drugs in a car and utility trailer outside the training center. While Prather and Argos were the only two from Ripon the others attending the school last week were from the Sheriff’s Office. On the training center staff is longtime Manteca K9 officer Jason Massey.

In the past, the Ripon K-9s were only drug dogs and were mostly Labrador Retrievers Officer Prather and Argos will take to the streets next week for an even safer Ripon community.