The Champaign County Sheriff’s Office just welcomed the newest member to its department this past week: 21-month-old German shepherd Ivo.

Ivo, who was brought to department from Slovakia, is partnering with Deputy Mark McCallister in the K-9 unit, which McCallister said has been nonexistent for 10 years.

“(A K-9 unit) was something we needed,” McCallister said. “We’re a large county, and we have major interstates running through, and it’s another tool we can use,” McCallister said.

McCallister has been with the department for the past 15 years. He said working in the K-9 unit, however, has always been his goal.

“It’s just a job I’ve always wanted to do, so when the spot became available, I put in for it,” McCallister said. “Ever since I became a police officer, it was just one of those things that I wanted to do in my career.”

Ivo was purchased and brought to Decatur in December, when he began training with a police canine trainer. After 10 weeks in Decatur, Ivo spent five and half weeks training with McCallister learning to work together and execute German commands.

McCallister said that the commands were kept in a foreign language intentionally.

“Those are commands that we don’t like giving out because we don’t want people knowing what the commands are for,” McCallister said.

After only a month and a half of training, the duo got their certification in the last week of February.

Ivo is now trained and certified to carry out a large number of imperative tasks. McCallister said the list of responsibilities includes: building searches, article and evidence searches, tracking and aggression work, and narcotics sweeps.

The two also assist in routine patrols and walk-arounds. During vehicle sweeps, McCallister will guide Ivo around a stopped vehicle to indicate the presence of narcotics. If he smells anything in the vehicle, he alerts McCallister by sitting, which gives the officer that originally stopped the vehicle permission to search.

Although Ivo was bred for a hard line of work, McCallister and Ivo bond outside of work as well. Ivo has his own kennel that McCallister built for him out in the backyard.

“He’s pretty passive, unless he’s given the work commands,” McCallister said. “For the most part, he’s pretty friendly, but when he gets the commands, he does what he needs to do.”

“(Ivo) is only 21 months, but I feel confident in how he’s been trained and how he works,” McCallister said.