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Wednesday, December 7,2022
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 3A
Dawson County Sheriff’s
Office’s K9 Robby retires
UNG gets first
K9 police officer
By Erica Jones
ejones@dawsonnews.com
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By Julia Hansen
jhansen@dawsonnews.com
After over three years spent faith
fully working for the local law
enforcement agency, K9 officer
Robby will conclude his tenure with
the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office.
During their Dec. 1 voting ses
sion, the Board of Commissioners
approved a request from the sher
iff’s office to retire the seven-year-
old canine from duty. Robby’s han
dler, DCSO Sgt. Smith, will become
the dog’s owner.
Robby, a Dutch Shepherd from
Holland, is certified in apprehen
sion, article searches, narcotics and
tracking.
“He and his handler, Sgt. Smith,
enjoy getting drugs off the streets of
Dawson County,” stated a March 7
DCSO Facebook post recognizing
the canine’s birthday.
As part of the North Georgia K9
Task Force, Robby and his handler
helped with searches and tracking in
Dawson, Lumpkin and other neigh
boring counties.
However, progressive medical
Julia Hansen Dawson County News
K9 officer Robby sits next to his handler, DCSO Sgt. Smith.
issues with Robby’s spine and pelvis
have made it difficult for him to
carry out his duties as a K9 officer,
DCSO’s request to the board stated.
“These dogs, you ask them to do a
lot more for you than pets at home,
and they go through a lot running
and chasing, and these terrains
around here put a toll on them,” said
District 3 Commissioner Tim
Satterfield. “I just thank God we’ve
got them.”
Chamber holds ribbon cutting
for CitruSolution Environmental
By Erica Jones
ejones@dawsonnews.com
On Wednesday Nov. 30,
the Dawson County
Chamber of Commerce
held a ribbon cutting for
CitruSolution
Environmental.
CitruSolution
Environmental offers
demolition free mold reme
diation and effective treat
ment for mold, viruses,
pathogens, germs and
odors. According to owner-
operator Mike Flowers, his
business aims to help con
trol the quality of the air in
a customer’s home without
having to turn to demoli
tion.
“We don’t do demolition
like a lot of old companies;
that gets very expensive
and that’s not always nec
essary; the dry fog system
we use is a new technology
so we don’t have to do the
demo and get into a high
cost for getting rid of the
mold spores in your home,”
Flowers said.
Everything he does, he
said, is based on testing to
make sure he and his cus
tomers both know exactly
what the problem is and
how to treat it.
“This is the biggest thing
people don’t understand
about having mold: a lot of
times it’s not visible, it’s in
your HVAC system or in
your attic or your crawl-
space mixed up in your air
and your home and a lot of
people get sickness
because of it,” Flowers
said. “We do a testing, we
don’t use guesswork, we
send it off to the laboratory
and they analyze it to deter
mine if you need mold
Erica Jones Dawson County News
On Wednesday Nov. 30, the Dawson County Chamber of Commerce held a
ribbon cutting for CitruSolution Environmental.
remediation.”
And his business can
treat more than just mold,
he added.
“My business is based
on mold remediation but I
do air quality control so if
you have any type of air
contamination, it doesn’t
have to be mold, I can rem
edy that with a dry fog sys
tem that we use,” Flowers
said.
Flowers has lived in
Dawson County for over
30 years and raised his
three sons, one of whom is
now his head technician, in
the county. He said that, in
the end, his goal is to help
protect the health and well
being of his customers by
treating their air and
removing dangers from it.
“You gotta treat your air;
it’s just as important as the
water you drink or the food
you eat,” Flowers said. “It’s
part of your health — if
you got lousy air in your
home you’re gonna have
some sicknesses and you’re
gonna have issues so I’m
here to take care of it.”
To learn more about
CitruSolution
Environmental, go to
https ://citrusenviroga-
mountains.com/ or call
404-312-5123.
The University of North Georgia now has a K9
police officer on its force, a 2-year-old German
Shepherd-Belgian Malinois mix named Rex.
According to a press release by the university, Rex
joined the UNG police force back in October and will
assist other agencies as needed. His partner, Officer
Dustin Singleton, described him as “sweet, loves every
one and wants to work all the time”.
“He’s a sergeant,” Singleton said in the release. “He
outranks me.”
UNG acquired the new K9 officer through a partner
ship with the Georgia Emergency Management
Association (GEMA), with the assistance of Hall
County Deputy Scott Lord and Tod Keys, exercise pro
gram director for GEMA/Homeland Security. Rex will
train along the K9 officers in the Hall County Sheriff’s
Office.
“The dog was acquired through GEMA at no cost to
the university,” UNG Police Chief Greg Williams said
in the release. “His certification and ongoing certifica
tion will also not cost UNG anything.”
During Rex’s first week on campus at UNG, he and
Singleton adjusted to one another and their new duties,
toured the campus, got to know the students and met
UNG President Bonita Jacobs. The top priority for the
pair, the release said, is to protect the university’s stu
dents.
“He works for the university. Student safety is his
first priority,” Singleton said in the release. “As soon as
he’s in the patrol car, he knows he’s on duty.”
The pair underwent weeks of explosive device train
ing including Jekyll Island and the Georgia Capitol, the
release said. Rex will search the UNG Convocation
Center prior to major events, and the pair will also
work throughout the state, including doing pre-concert
explosive detection at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“We wanted to have a dog that would be friendly
around students. That’s the top priority,” Singleton said
in the release. “Also, every commencement we pay for
someone to come in and do a bomb search of the
Convocation Center. Instead of having to call people,
we now have our own team, which makes it easier.
We’re getting to be the same size as larger units, so we
want to make sure we’re keeping up.”
Photo courtesy UNG
Officer Dustin Singleton stands with UNG's
newest police force member, K9 Rex.
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