After 27 years without a police dog, Laramie has finally put a K9 back on patrol — a 1-year-old German shepherd named Zara whose teeth chatter when she's excited.
It's just one of the quirks Laramie Police Officer Seth Meyer has discovered about his new partner, who also jumps with excitement when it's time to get in the patrol car.
At home, she wants attention. She'll wrap her paws around Meyer as though she's giving him a hug.
She's calm, affectionate and, he says, "pretty hilarious."
Then it's time to work.
"I could talk about this dog all day," Meyer said.
'Sniff Only'
Unlike the police dogs Laramie had decades ago, Zara isn't trained to bite or apprehend people.
She's a single-purpose dog, Meyer said: "Sniff only."
More specifically, she's trained in narcotics detection and human tracking.
Sgt. Matthew Leibovitz told Cowboy State Daily the department's earlier K9s were used for tracking, building searches and suspect apprehension.
Marco was the last of those dogs.
The Albany County Sheriff's Office already has two K9s, Meyer said. The University of Wyoming Police Department also maintain a canine program, including Otto, a German shepherd trained in explosives detection and tracking. UW says Otto was born in Germany and joined the university's police force in 2022.
Meyer saw a hole in his own department's toolbox. Police officers can search a car, building or other area, but when they're trying to locate narcotics without knowing exactly where to look, they're at an obvious disadvantage.
Dogs aren't. Meyer called them an "amazing tool" for finding narcotics.
Of particular concern to him are drugs making their way into schools, including THC vape products, as well as fentanyl entering the community.
Without a detection dog, he said, officers can sometimes be left "looking blindly."
The Laramie Police Department itself describes opioid and fentanyl misuse as a growing concern and maintains a public-information page dedicated to synthetic opioids and overdose prevention.
Meyer decided to do something about that gap himself.
Bringing K9s Back
Meyer wrote the proposal for a new K9 program and brought it to Police Chief Brian Browne.
City records show that on March 17, Meyer stood before the Laramie Police Advisory Board and gave a presentation laying out the proposed program.
The board voted to recommend establishing a Laramie Police Department K9 program using opioid prevention funds.
The idea also fit a longer-term goal already identified by the city. Laramie's fiscal year 2026 budget listed developing a blueprint for a sustainable drug-dog program among the police department's objectives.
By the city's fiscal 2027 budget process, the proposal had become more concrete.
The city described plans for a one-unit K9 program that would help officers with drug interdiction and tracking missing or lost people while also building relationships with the community. The proposal had formal support from Albany County School District No. 1 and the Laramie Regional Airport.
Eventually, the plan received the approvals it needed.
Twenty-seven years after Marco, Laramie was getting another dog.
From Germany To Wyoming
Zara had already traveled a long way before Meyer picked her up Oct. 1.
She was trained in Germany before going through K9 Working Dogs International, a company that provides trained police dogs and handler courses to law-enforcement agencies.
The company says it was established in Duisburg, Germany, and has training operations in Europe and the United States. It has supplied police and military working dogs to agencies around the world.
K9 Working Dogs International has worked with law-enforcement agencies in Sweetwater County, where training included human tracking, narcotics investigations, free-air sniffs and other K9 work.
Zara eventually made her way to a trainer in Rock Springs who also works for the Wyoming Highway Patrol, Meyer said. She spent a couple of weeks training there before moving to Laramie.
The pair completed 120 hours of handler training over two weeks, learning not just what Zara could do, but how the two would communicate as a working team.
"Becoming a K9 handler is an incredible honor, and I'm proud to take on this responsibility alongside K9 Zara," Meyer said when the department announced her arrival.
Training didn't end with certification.
Meyer said they work on it every day.
Already On A Trail
Zara began working patrol last week and she's already been deployed twice.
One was a free-air sniff that resulted in no alert.
On Monday, police were looking for someone who had run from officers and Zara was brought in to track.
She picked up a scent and began following it, leading officers in the direction the person had gone. The trail eventually went cold at the doors of a building near the cemetery and University of Wyoming campus.
At the time, police didn't know whether Zara had gotten it right.
Then they checked university cameras.
The person they were looking for had, in fact, gone through the area Zara led them toward, Meyer said. Police believe the person was picked up by a vehicle from there, explaining why the scent trail abruptly disappeared.
For a dog that had been on the job for only days, it was an encouraging start.
Leibovitz said Zara can also be deployed to search for missing and at-risk people, including children and older adults.
She'll work Meyer's regular patrol shifts and can be called out when Laramie police or partner agencies need a K9.
Princess Zara
When Meyer got his new partner, her name was Kira.
Meyer already has a German shepherd at home named Bagheera, along with an Australian shepherd. Kira and Bagheera were just a little too close for a household that would now have three dogs.
Kira became Zara. Meyer said he found the name translated to "princess," which seemed like a good fit for the first female K9 in the Laramie Police Department's history.
The two old-timers at home weren't exactly thrilled, he said.
Meyer said his other dogs are older and a bit grouchy about the energetic newcomer, but they're slowly coming around.
Zara, meanwhile, has energy to burn.
Meyer walks her in the morning and again at night. They train daily, and he takes her hiking frequently.
He says her biggest muscle, though, isn't her legs or her jaws — it's her brain.
Paired with her nose, she's ready to find narcotics and follow people.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
