2024 AKC Paw of Courage Recipients

In February of 2024, K9 Biza and her partner assisted in tracking down a 12-year-old child who had been missing for over two hours. Biza followed the child’s scent for two miles, which ended with K9 Biza and K9 officer David Llunggren safely reuniting the child with their family.

Biza is a dual purpose K9 who is nationally certified through the North American Work Dog Association on patrol functions and narcotics. Patrol functions include obedience, building searches, area searches, evidence recovery, aggression control/handler protection and human tracking.

She is 3 years old and in her down time, she enjoys long walks, playing fetch and swimming.

Over K9 Vishu’s career, she has assisted on open water searches for drowning victims as well as missing persons searches for many surrounding police departments. Vishu has assisted multiple agencies in the Midwest to help locate evidence and remains in various states and stages of decomposition.

She has been certified numerous times through United States Police Canine Association as both a tracking dog and detector dog. She is trained to track and indicate on articles for live persons and find human remains in various stages and states of decomposition.

Vishu eats a raw meat diet and is referred to as “The Hamburgler” here, earning the name through many acts of thievery over the years.