From the City of Apopka
The Apopka Police Department (APD) will have a special surprise today for one lucky student at Apopka Memorial Middle School who picked the perfect name for a new canine officer.
Representatives from the APD will be at Apopka Middle, 425 N. Park Ave., at 3 p.m. to meet the student who submitted the idea for the dog as part of a contest for all students at Apopka Middle and nearby Wolf Lake Middle School.
The student’s class will get a pizza party. Police canine officers will present a demonstration with their dogs. Police Chief Michael McKinley will attend the activities. The student will also get to meet the police department’s newly named, four-legged officer.
The dog is an energetic, 21-month-old Belgian Malinois -that teams up with Apopka police Officer Josean Velez Cantres, who joined the APD five years ago. The two started working together last month, and they have been training to teach the dog patrol and drug detection skills.
The police department received dozens of ideas from school students to name the canine – everything from common dog names to unusually common school items like pencil and paper. News of the contest spread quickly online, where local residents offered a few of their own suggestions for the students to name the canine - Darter, Tater, Scout, Thor and Sawyer among the different ideas.
