The First Police K9 Unit in America: How New York City Started It All in 1907

In 1907, New York City created the first police K9 unit in the United States, and the decision grew out of tragedy. A brutal, unsolved murder in Queens convinced NYPD leadership that a trained dog could catch a fleeing suspect faster than any officer on foot. Within two years, that idea turned into a working patrol program, and it changed American law enforcement for good.

A Murder That Changed Policing

On May 22, 1907, 15-year-old Amelia Staffeldt was found murdered near her home in Elmhurst, Queens. Investigators located a suspect, but two grand juries declined to indict him, and the case was never solved. Deputy Police Commissioner Arthur Woods argued publicly that a trained bloodhound could have tracked the killer within hours. He convinced Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham to take the idea seriously, and the NYPD began investigating whether dogs belonged on the force.

The department first sent Lt. George Wakefield to a bloodhound kennel near Poughkeepsie. However, Wakefield concluded that a bloodhound would struggle in the city. City streets carried too many competing scents, and a suspect could easily break a trail by ducking into the subway. New York needed a different kind of dog, so Wakefield started looking overseas.

Building the First Police K9 Unit from Scratch

Wakefield traveled to Ghent, Belgium, home to a police dog training program that had been running since 1899. He spent several weeks working alongside Ghent’s handlers and training with the dogs himself. Ghent’s Belgian sheepdogs, he decided, could handle the demands of New York’s streets far better than a bloodhound could.

Trained Belgian dogs were not for sale. Wakefield instead purchased five six-month-old sheepdogs to train from scratch back in New York. One dog died during the transatlantic crossing, and an American-born Airedale Terrier named Jim took his place. The surviving dogs were Nogi, Max, Donna, and Lady. Together, they became the founding members of America’s first police K9 unit.

Training America’s First Police K9 Unit

Wakefield set up a training academy inside a rundown mansion in Fort Washington Park, in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Newspapers of the era nicknamed it “America’s first and only police dog college.” For four months, Wakefield and two patrolmen drilled the dogs on two core commands: “Attack” and “Down.” Handlers muzzled every dog during training so it could not bite. A quick-release snap let an officer free the muzzle instantly if real force became necessary.

Training also reinforced a strict rule: the dogs learned to trust the uniform, not the individual wearing it. Only uniformed officers were allowed to feed or handle the dogs, while men in street clothes deliberately provoked them instead. As a result, the dogs treated any uniformed officer as a friend and viewed civilian clothing with suspicion, a distinction that mattered once the dogs hit the street.

A Grand Debut at Madison Square Garden

The public got its first look at New York’s police dogs in February 1908, at the Westminster Kennel Club show in Madison Square Garden. Handlers staged a live demonstration, sending each dog after a padded “decoy” to show how the team would work a real arrest. Jim, the lone American-born Airedale in the group, stole the show. He knocked his decoy down so many times that the man could barely stand back up, and the Kennel Club created a special award just to honor him.

How the First Police K9 Unit Patrolled Brooklyn’s Streets

The five dogs were assigned to the 172nd Precinct, now Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct, where they patrolled the Parkville section on overnight shifts. A handler and dog would work a beat between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. The dog’s job was simple: corner a suspect, then stand and bark until an officer arrived. The program worked well enough that it grew steadily afterward. By 1911, sixteen dogs patrolled residential districts across Long Island, and by 1929, the unit had expanded to twenty-three dogs.

A Legacy Worth Protecting Today

More than a century later, roughly 50,000 police K9s serve communities across the United States. The mission Wakefield’s five dogs pioneered in 1907 has never stopped growing since. Today’s K9s face real dangers on patrol, from extreme heat to violent encounters, and they deserve the same level of protection their handlers receive. That is exactly why PPAK9 exists: to make sure no working K9 goes into the field without the gear it needs, from ballistic vests to heat alarm systems. You can help equip a K9 team through a donation, or explore PPAK9’s donor-advised fund option for a longer-term commitment to K9 safety.

Sources

• The Blue Magazine, “The History of the Police K9,” by Robert Bowling
• America Comes Alive, “The First Police Dogs in the U.S.,” by Kate Kelly