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There’s a new deputy at the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, but he may have a bit more fur than you are expecting.

A new K9 named Yorik began his career in Iberia Parish recently, and he’s already hard at work combating narcotics.

Born in the Czech Republic, Yorik was originally a pet before being donated to the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office by K9 Officers, a charity based out of Richmond, Texas that provides law enforcement agencies with trained dogs for free.

Yorik is assigned to Deputy Zachery Derouen, a 6-year veteran of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office. Now on his third K9 partner, Dep. Derouen attended training in Houston, Texas for 11 weeks with Yorik for free thanks to K9 Officers.

Patrol Captain Mike Hollier said that the donation was a blessing to the department due to the costs associated with procuring and training a law enforcement K9.

“These dogs are so incredibly expensive, they will cost between $15,000-20,000 to purchase and train the dog and handler,” Cpt. Hollier explained. “It’s a huge benefit for agencies, especially small agencies. The dogs are incredibly important to our officers because, in a rural parish like ours, the deputies are often far away from each other. It’s a big help to have the dog with you to help combat drug problems like we’re trying to do.”

The Sheriff’s Department currently has 5 K9s on active service, 4 on patrol and 1 working in the parish jail.

Hollier said that the department was facing the expensive task of replacing multiple animals due to aging, but the donations of dogs like Yorik allow the deputies to continue to provide a valuable service to the community.

“In our situation, we had a group of four patrol dogs that were aging out,” he said. “They were getting older and it was time to retire them. To replace that many dogs all at once was a huge expense, one that we just couldn’t handle. This organization doesn’t get just one specific breed of dogs, they just look for dogs that will be appropriate for law enforcement purposes. Some will be shepherds and some will be malinois. The company gives you a choice of training but all of our dogs are patrol trained and narcotic trained.”

Yorik has been on the job since January, and has already proven his value to the community. In just 6 months, Yorik’s statistics are:

319 grams of methamphetamine

1.3 pounds of marijuana

11 grams of heroin

2.1 grams of cocaine

$1,984 in currency

4 apprehensions

The donation of dogs like Yorik would not be possible without the support that K9 Officers receive from the public. To donate to this worthy organization, visit k9officers.org or follow them on social media. K9 Officers is a 503c(3) charity and all donations go towards the purchasing, training, and upkeep of law enforcement K9s.