My black lab, bless his heart and rest his doggie soul, was as dumb as a box of rocks and cute as heck. If he had a single talent, it was his nose. I always figured that if we’d adopted him earlier, we might have trained him to sniff out birds. As it was, it took us a couple of years just to get him to shake a paw.
In recent weeks, a much smarter black lab, and also cute as heck, joined the DNR’s Two Harbors station alongside his new handler, Conservation Officer Cassie Block. With a nose for conservation work, he’s now her four-legged partner in the field.
Their partnership began earlier this year when K9 Jet’s previous handler took a promotion. Block, who hails from Anoka, had been working out of the DNR’s Willmar office for five years. She jumped at the opportunity to transfer and take on Jet.
“I’m so excited,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be up North, and now it’s finally happening. I love it up here.”
Block grew up fishing and camping, spending much of her childhood exploring the outdoors. Her deep passion for nature and wildlife shaped her love for the environment and inspired her career path.
“I’ve always been interested in anything outdoors and natural resources,” she said. “I figured out there’s a job out there that lets you do all of that and help protect it. So, I said, that’s it. That’s what I want to do.”
Taking on Jet, a four-year-old lab originally from Texas, meant Block had to go back to school for specialized K9 training. This rigorous program trains handlers and dogs to work seamlessly together, honing Jet’s natural abilities and teaching Block how to communicate effectively with her new partner.
“We call it K9 school,” she explained. “I’ve been with Jet since about late January. We completed our 12 weeks of K9 school, and shortly after that, we moved up here.”
Block was surprised by all the little nuances involved in training, not just for the dog, but for the handler, too.
“There’s a lot of nuances to training and your timing as a handler for giving your reward, either food or the ball,” she said. “It needs to be pretty locked in. It takes a lot of consistency to build good habits you want to see in your canine, everything that goes into creating a high-functioning dog.”
Jet is a single-purpose trained dog, meaning his sole focus is detection. He helps recover evidence, locate wild game, find missing people and fleeing suspects, and can even sniff out invasive zebra mussels. Unlike dual-purpose dogs, Jet is not trained for criminal apprehension.
When I asked Block about Jet’s favorite pastime, she said, “Working.” Apparently, Jet prefers sniffing over lounging any day.
“He loves going to work because we make work a game for him, so everything’s really fun,” she said. “He knows when he goes to work and finds what he’s supposed to, he gets his ball, which is probably the best thing ever, if you were to ask him.”
Block and Jet are one of three new canine-handler teams that joined the DNR’s canine unit this year. There are currently eight canine partners serving across the state of Minnesota.
“I’m thankful for all the work these dogs and handlers have done and am really excited for them to join the team and enhance our ability to protect Minnesota’s people and natural resources,” Unit leader Capt. Phil Mohs said. “Our dogs have an integral role in achieving our overall mission of ensuring the generations of Minnesotans that come after us have the same or better opportunities than we do today.”
Block looks forward to community outreach events, such as elementary school demonstrations, and to ‘meeting people in the field,’ like at boat launches where they search for zebra mussels.
“It’s a great education opportunity, and people are usually pretty excited to see the dog go to work,” she said. Turns out, Jet is both a conservation starter and a conversation starter!
Jet is proof that with the right training, a black lab can both protect the North Shore and steal plenty of hearts along the way. Our lab stole hearts, too, but he also wasn’t above stealing snacks when no one was looking.
Welcome to the area, CO Block and K9 Jet! Thank you both for helping protect the beautiful North Shore we all love.
