Canine Rico: Serving the community

ubmitted photo The Journal
Rockford Police Department’s canine Rico visited Winnebago County 911 Center.

Canine Rico: Serving the community
Over the past seven years, Rockford Police Department’s beloved canine, Rico, has been all over our community. Between calls of fighting crime, Rico has been at Y-Camps, picnics, Christmas parties, schools, workout gyms, the Post Office, the library, the dog wash and many other local places.
He’s been in fun-houses, on bumper cars, on Easter Egg Hunts, on power slides and tea cup rides. He’s participated in No-Shave November, posed as Super Dog, a detective, a reporter and has even been interviewed by Mike Garrigan with 23 News.
But the one place he had never visited and wanted to cross it off of his bucket list before his pending retirement, was the Winnebago County 911 Center. He’s always admired how well the 911 Center Staff handles the difficult day to day, behind the scenes operations of keeping our community, including our officers safe; so off to the 911 Center he went. The Staff was ever so welcoming.
And, while he was only at the center for a short time, he had the opportunity to handle one 911 call, in which another dog called to report his ball was stuck under the couch. The 911 Staff handled all the real 911 calls from people.
Where will Rico show up next?