Donated K-9 Set To Join Moorestown Police Force

MOORESTOWN, NJ — The Moorestown Police Department is getting a new employee, and it’s of the four-legged variety.

K-9 Saltz will soon begin training to join the Moorestown Police K-9 unit. Saltz will take over for K-9 Chico, who joined the department in 2017 when Moorestown brought back it’s K-9 unit.

Chico was a donation from the Galloway Police Department in January 2017. In his retirement years, he will live with his current handler, Officer Kevin Sloan.

Saltz comes to the police department via a donation from the Anderson Family to the Hometown Foundation, Sloan said.

The Hometown Foundation, founded in 2002, raises money to support a broad range of programs that meet the community’s needs, according to the foundation's website. This includes acquire K-9 officers for police departments.

David Anderson, a Moorestown native, was at a Hometown Foundation event in Florida when he learned that the foundation was donating a police dog of the donor's choosing. It wasn't long before Moorestown police got the call that they were getting a new K-9, Sloan said in a video that can be seen below.

"Having a K-9 unit with that kind of enforcement is second-to-none," Sloan said in the video. "It's a crucial piece to having the ability to go out there and enforce certain types of laws."

Saltz is the first K-9 the foundation donated in New Jersey, the organization said in a social media post. He is a 14-month-old dog from the Czech Republic, according to Sloan. He will start training in the fall, and join the department when he is fully certified.

He’ll be trained in narcotics detection and evidence recovery, and will be used to help with searches for missing people. Sloan said this is important because Moorestown police come across cases of elderly people walking off and disappearing about three or four times a year.

The donation is important because there was no money set aside for the K-9 Unit. Sloan says he has had the support of the police department and the township council, and would like to expand his unit in the future.

“We have just one dog right now,” Sloan said. “We hope to acquire more in the future. Chief Lieber has been a huge supporter of our K-9 Unit, and he helped reinstate it when he became chief. He helped reinstate it with the backing of township council, and we’ve received nothing but support.”

Sloan and his partner attend as many community events as possible, but that hasn’t happened in more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. He said he hopes those events make a comeback soon.

For more information about the Hometown Foundation, visit hometownfoundation.org.