The City of Kalona has contributed $2,500 to the Washington County Sheriffs’ K9 Unit.

Back in early December, the department’s K9 named Vasco, died of cancer after over five years of service helping the sheriff’s office detect drugs, track missing and wanted individuals and protect partners as well as handler, Deputy Nolan Burke. They recently added a new K9 named Dzamal.

At their meeting Monday night, the Kalona City Council voted to approve the financial assistance to the K9 program and City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh presented the check to the Washington County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, “Staff-wise we talked about how we could participate that would be acceptable to the public and we presented that to council and they were unanimous in their support of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department as well as providing the $2,500 to help defray some of the costs associated with bringing a dog on board and sending an officer to go train for four weeks.”

In late January, the Washington County Riverboat Foundation also made a surprise donation of $10,000 to the K9 unit. Dzamal and Deputy Burke are scheduled to begin training next week in Forest City.