Bartlesville Police given new ‘bite suit’ to train K9 unit

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — Bartlesville Police (BPD) said new equipment donated will help them train their K9s for real-life situations.

BPD has a new bite suit that officers said is lightweight and helps the dogs learn how to stop suspects in more life-like situations.

“The bite suit allows us to teach the dog to target certain areas, the extremities, the legs, arms; and avoid lethal areas,” BPD said.

BPD’s K9 Coordinator Cpl. Cody Lemmons said it’s going to help them catch suspects.

“The dog knows to target the bad guy in those specific areas, the arms, we teach them to target the arms. That keeps their arms occupied if they’re reaching for guns, weapons, while I’m fighting the bad guy,” he said. “They target legs a lot of time, they go for legs if the suspect’s hiding under things, under trailers, under boxes.”

Officers said the new suit weighs nearly 10 pounds lighter than the old one and it gives a better range of motion.

Police were able to buy the suit with the help of a grant from non profit Running 4 Heroes.

“The new suit will help us greatly … mock vehicle pursuits where suspects tails out of a vehicle, if we’ve got to send in a dog on a felony stop it’ll allow that decoy to maneuver around in a way that a suspect would and not just be at the mercy of the suit,” Lemmons said.

BPD said the suit costs around $2,000 and it’s going to mean they can train their dogs safely and effectively to help the community.

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