voting is officially<\/a> open for its K9 March Madness Tournament.<\/p>\n“As Florida gears up for the big tournament on the court, it\u2019s time for YOU to decide who will be crowned the Top Dog in the Sunshine State,” the association says. “These aren’t just cute faces; they are heroes on four paws.”<\/p>\n
K9s competing include:<\/p>\n
K9 Maverick – Charlotte County<\/p>\n
K9 Malibu – Alachua County<\/p>\n
K9 Piper – Franklin County<\/p>\n
K9 Rigby – Escambia County<\/p>\n
K9 Pepperjack – Gulf County<\/p>\n
K9 Roy – Hillsborough County<\/p>\n
K9 Jester – Hernando County<\/p>\n
K9 Goose – Highlands County<\/p>\n
K9 Sunny – Indian River County<\/p>\n
K9 Remington – Lee County<\/p>\n
K9 Boyd-Boyle – Miami-Dade County<\/p>\n
K9 Beau – Okaloosa County<\/p>\n
K9 Ricco – Okeechobee County<\/p>\n
K9 Bronx – Sarasota County<\/p>\n
K9 Storm – Seminole County<\/p>\n
K9 Ozi – Santa Rosa County<\/p>\n
K9 Syne – St. Lucie County<\/p>\n
K9 Scout* – St. Johns County<\/p>\n
Meet the mutts<\/p>\n
K9 Ruger is golden in more ways than one. This boy is getting up there in years, now eight years old and approaching retirement this summer, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said. He currently specializes in finding missing people, but used to sniff out narcotics.<\/p>\n
K9 Scout* (yes, the asterisk is part of his name) is a German Wirehaired Pointer and is trained in sniffing out narcotics. He joined the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s Youth Resource Division in 2024 and works to keep schools and students safe.<\/p>\n
K9 Max is a young Fox Red Lab trained in firearm detection and was introduced into the Nassau County School District during the 2025 school year as a preventative security measure, the sheriff’s office said. He’s also skilled in human tracking and article search.<\/p>\n
The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office says 6-year-old detention K-9 Harold plays a vital role on the team. When he’s not patrolling the human kennels, he likes to chomp on his favorite toys: a Kong or a tennis ball.<\/p>\n
Voting officially began<\/a> on Thursday. Build out your bracket and pick your favorites now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canine Championship returns! The Florida Sheriff’s Association announced on Thursday that voting is officially open for its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12513,3487,4717,28,30,29,91895,276,12189,45740,7088,3898,1014],"class_list":["post-198419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-alachua-county","tag-clay-county","tag-flagler-county","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-sheriff39s-association","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-indian-river-county","tag-jacksonville-sheriff39s-office","tag-manatee-county","tag-nassau-county","tag-seminole-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}