Oxford Police showcase K9 training drills in behind-the-scenes video

Oxford Police put its K9 unit in the spotlight this week with a behind-the-scenes video that showed handler-dog teams working through drills, scenarios and skills meant to keep Oxford safe. The short reel was Episode 2 of the department’s new series, The Protectors, and it gave Lafayette County residents a closer look at one of the department’s most specialized teams.

The feature centers on the kind of work regular patrol cannot do alone. Oxford Police has three K-9 officers, including Jocko, a 5-year-old black Labrador retriever used for drug detection and for locating lost people. That combination of scent work and search ability is what makes the unit useful in cases where officers need more than radios, flashlights and patrol cars. It also explains why the department trains the dogs and handlers so often.

Officer Brandon Byrd said OPD requires at least 16 hours of canine training each month, but his unit usually gets at least 20. Byrd said the team does five-hour training sessions every Wednesday, a steady schedule that keeps the dogs sharp on obedience, searches and deployment work. The latest video showed that training rhythm in action, turning what is usually a closed-off part of police operations into a public demonstration of how the teams function.

The unit has also shown tangible results over the years. In OPD’s 2019 year-end report, the K-9 team was credited with seizing more than $63,000 in cash and more than $844,000 in street-value narcotics. Earlier department reports from 2018 and 2019 described the unit as four officer handlers plus a K-9 partner, underscoring how long the specialty has been part of local policing in Oxford.

OPD has tried for years to use public education as a safeguard around specialized policing. A 2014-15 Citizens Police Academy flyer said the department wanted to strengthen trust and dispel myths by showing residents how officers are trained, including the mounted unit, K9 unit, SWAT, narcotics unit and active-shooter response. That same approach now extends to video.

The K9 program also continues to evolve. In May 2024, Oxford Police said Officer MacKenzie Rogers became the department’s first female K-9 officer and was assigned with school resource officers at Bramlett Elementary School. For Oxford, the latest video was more than a social-media clip. It was a reminder that the city’s canine teams are trained, deployed and kept under public scrutiny as they move between drug cases, missing-person searches and school safety work.