Calvert Advanced Life Support is excited to announce a partnership between CALS and the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office and its K9 officers. In 2015 Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans had the vision to add several narcotic K9’s to the Sheriff’s Office. These k9’s have been utilized as an excellent crime fighting tool, helping deputies detect illegal narcotics. By 2016 CCSO had grown its K9 ranks to 14 working dogs. With the increase in our county’s K9 force CALS did an assessment and found that we had no providers trained to provide immediate care to K9’s who had been critically injured on scene. Handlers are forced to place the dogs in their cruisers and race them to Huntingtown for emergency veterinarian care.

The goal was to get a paramedic trained in basic emergency K9 care to be able to start care on the scene of an incident. Survivability once in the care of a definitive veterinarian increases significantly if immediate care is started on the scene. CALS quickly began training toward this endeavor with the Veterinarian Tactical Group located in Virginia Beach. From that point forward CALS made the commitment to send as many paramedics as possible to this course with the end goal of being able to guarantee that 24/7 365 there would be a K9 medic on duty in Calvert County. In 2017 CALS paid for two Deputy Sheriff’s to attend the training. Additionally, the training is now offered to current k9 handlers.

CALS and the CCSO are pleased to announce that on April 17 – 18, 2018 the Veterinarian Tactical Group will be conducting the training at the CCSO training facility on Broomes Island Road. Currently the course will be attended by 9 paramedics from CALS and other EMS agencies in the region, 8 CCSO K9 handlers, and 2 k9 handlers from other regional agencies. CALS currently has 14 paramedics trained in K9 life support.