Pasco's 'Good Boy' Canines Take Bite Out of Crime

This story was reported and written by Patch Local Editor Alex Tiegen.

Thor the German shepherd has been keeping busy.

He is a member of the K-9 unit run by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, and over the weekend, he helped his human partner nab a man suspected in more than 10 burglaries, according to the agency.  

John Rux, a corporal with the agency’s K-9 unit, was investigating a report of suspicious activity at a house in the Osceola Heights subdivision of the New Port Richey area July 12 when he noticed one of the house’s windows lying on the ground.

He called other deputies to the house and heard the front door. He ran to the front yard. A man named Chris Davis ran toward him and Thor. Rux told Davis to get on the ground, but Davis fled.

So Rux unleashed Thor, and the dog gave chase.

When Davis jumped a 2.5-foot wall, Thor, followed.

He bit Davis’s ankle while they were both in mid-air. It was that bite that brought Davis down and gave Rux the opportunity to take Davis into custody. 

Davis was arrested and charged with burglary, criminal mischief and resisting arrest. Then, Hernando County Sheriff’s deputies learned of the arrest and charged Davis with 10 additional burglaries, according to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.  

Thor is a 5-year-old dog with four years experience in the K-9 unit.  He’s not just any German shepherd either. He’s one from Germany. The sheriff’s office bought him from a trusted company there.

Thor has made a life for himself in Pasco. At the end of his four-day work week, he gets to go home with Rux, who has trained and housed Pasco's K-9s since the 1990s. 

Most Pasco K-9s work around 10 years.  When Thor is too old to work, he can look forward to a comfortable retirement in Rux's home. 

He took the spotlight when the sheriff’s office held a demonstration of the K-9 unit’s abilities for the media July 18. The agency has seven canines total and they’ve been a boon in several recent cases.   

Other cases in which the the unit has been an asset lately include:

•  A traffic stop in Spring Hill where K-9 Eragon sniffed out drugs and deputies found 808 grams of marijuana, one gram of methamphetamine, rolling papers, pills and scales.  

•  A K-9 named Ace led his partner to a travel trailer in Hudson where a man who fled arrest was hiding in a cupboard.

• A man who went missing in Hudson was found  in a thicket of palmettos by a dog named Jet and his human partner.