Mona has been a police officer with East Hartford PD in Connecticut for almost two decades, and has been a K9 handler since 2006. The gents talk about K9 policing in East Hartford, and Mona tells a harrowing story of a call where he got shot and his K9 partner got stabbed. We also get into the early stages of training building searches. Stay tuned for Part 2, where Mona gets into moving forward with building searches and doing more advanced training

Mona’s first K9 partner, Primo, had 51 contact apprehensions, and approximately 150 non-contact apprehensions/finds from 2006-2015. K9 Primo came in 1st in top obedience, and 2nd in top criminal apprehension at the Connecticut Police K9 Olympics, and is a 3 time Daniel Wasson Memorial K9 Award winner.

Mona’s second K9 partner, Casus, has 26 contact apprehensions, and 106 non-contact apprehensions/finds from 2014-present. K9 Casus came in 1st for top team obedience in 2018 and 2021, and top team tactical obedience 2016 at the Connecticut Police K9 Olympics. The pair also placed 2nd at the 2016 Cabelas Police K9 Competition, 2nd at the 2018 and 2019 Dreamride Police K9 Challenge, and 1st at the 2021 Dreamride Police K9 Challenge. Oh, and they are also a 3 time Daniel Wasson Memorial K9 Award winners.

If that’s not enough to make you starstruck, Casus has been trained in firearm detection since 2018, has 12 guns recovered to date, he has been present and involved (directly and indirectly) with 4 officer involved shootings (where K9 Casus got bite on two of them). Mona has been a CPWDA maintenance trainer since 2014, CPWDA trainer since 2016, CPWDA building search class instructor (increasing hunt drive while expanding the building search), instructed at Blueline K9 Conference, is the current CPWDA Vice President, AND will be taking the NAPWDA trainer test November of 2022.

That was a LOT to cover! (You now know why there will be a Part 2!!) You can watch and listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.⁣

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