By William Smith
Burlington Police Officer Porfiro Gallegos Jr., 29, just met his new partner a few months ago.
He is talkative, green, and ready for action. A four-legged partner highly trained in the art of drug-sniffing and people-finding.
It is the buddy-cop relationship Gallegos has always dreamed of. He even got to pick the name “Paco” for his new partner. The namesake comes from his first childhood dog.
“He actually ran away and got hit by a car,” Gallegos said. “So, it was nice to bring some of my personality to Paco.”
A 19-month-old German Shepherd, Paco was born in the Czech Republic. That means all the commands Gallegos issues to Paco has to be in Czech. Paco’s German Shepherd counterpart at the police department, Rico, only responds to commands in Dutch, reflecting his upbringing.
“We’re very fortunate that our current handler officer Beckman can train canines for Working Dogs International. I’ve been working with him twice a week up until we go to certification,” Gallegos said.
Though he speaks English as naturally as any native speaker, Gallegos grew up in the Chicago area and learned English as a second language. His parents emigrated from Mexico, and he was born in America. His desire to become a policeman was seeded in his ESL (English as a Second Language) classes in first grade.
“I was paired with an officer from the local police department where I’m from. He kind of sparked my interest in the police thing. I just thought it was cool that an officer would come read to me,” Gallegos said. “He was bilingual himself.”
Gallegos has always been a big dog person. He has a boxer-terrier mix at home and had his eye on the K-9 unit from the moment he started with the Burlington Police Department.
He took every chance he could to pick the brain of previous K-9 officers.
“Communicating effectively with an animal that doesn’t speak our language has always been something that interested me,” he said. “That’s pretty cool.”
Gallegos will be celebrating his fifth anniversary with the department in August.
He started as a patrol officer in December 2018 and became a detective in September 2021. But his job duties have stretched far beyond that.
“I’ve been a field training officer. I’m on bike patrol. I’m on boat patrol. I serve as a CIT instructor. I lead the stop arm violations at schools. I was a police explorer advisor,” Gallegos said.
In August, Gallegos returns to patrol, and Paco will be beside him. Paco is about to become a part of the Gallegos family and will live with them soon.
But he is also an $18,000 policing tool, and the officers know not to distract him too much from the mission. Paco likely will not meet Gallegos’ family for some time.
“I just finished his house,” Gallegos said. “He (Paco) will actually reside in my garage. We have an interior kennel and I’m building an exterior kennel. So in the winter, he’ll be in the interior kennel, and in the summer, he will be in the exterior kennel.”
Gallegos introduced Paco to the Burlington community during a Facebook Live event Tuesday morning.
Burlington Police Chief Marc Denney spoke of what Paco brings to the department.
He said it has been a while since Burlington had two K-9s, and Paco can take over for Rico as the elder dog ages out of the job.
Denney said the ideal retirement age for a police dog is typically around 6 years old.
“We’ve been kind of pushing this off and pushing this off (acquiring a new K-9 officer) because we were just trying to raise enough funds to make this happen and make it sustainable over time,” Denney said. “Our goal is to make sure that we have working dogs over the years.”
Becoming a K-9 officer brings extra responsibility, and that is what Gallegos was looking for. When he took the job at the Burlington Police Department, Gallegos was concerned there would not be enough action.
He laughs about that now.
“I told my wife when I got hired, ‘Oh, this will be small town Iowa.’ But I was pleasantly surprised by how busy we stay. And I enjoy that,” he said.