OGDEN — Anya, the nearly 3-year-old Belgian Malinois who works with the North Ogden Police Department’s K-9 unit has only been on the job for four weeks, but she was already ready to celebrate Christmas with her coworkers Monday afternoon.
She has not known her coworkers well — those with four legs and the others with two — but, given all of her energy and excitement over seeing people, other dogs and pup cups, her fellow officer thought it would be best to keep Anya away from all the activity.
That does not mean he was not grateful for the invite to the party. It’s not everyday you get invited to a Christmas party for K-9 dogs.
“I think this party is pretty cool. I think it’s cool that there are people who appreciate what our dogs do,” said North Ogden police officer Britton Griggs of the North Ogden Police Department’s K-9 unit. He is K-9 officer Anya’s handler and coworker. “They put in a lot of hard work, and sometimes they are under-appreciated for the work that they do.”
The staff at Young Hyundai in Ogden as well as community volunteers definitely appreciate what these dogs do.
On Monday afternoon, they held a Christmas party for the pups in the K-9 units of the Ogden and North Ogden police departments and the Weber County Sheriff’s Office. Each four-legged officer got some treats, a blanket with a hand-embroidered message on it, pup cups and lots of attention from staff and volunteers.
The party was organized by Edith Hornsby and was based on her personal Christmas service project. Roughly six years ago, she was thinking about police dogs and decided to do something for them. Each passing year, she discovered there are more K-9 dogs than the year before, so she needed help.
“When the community found out about it, they just jumped right on it,” Hornsby said. “We just figured this is a great way to show our gratitude and appreciation for a position that probably doesn’t get a lot of that. And it’s a great time of year to do it.”
Volunteers came to the party to say “hello” to the human officers and “thanks” to the canine ones. The same was true for the Young staff members who visited with the guests of honor, some of whom were more than happy to return the thanks by waiting for hugs and pets while their tails wagged rapidly.
In the past, Hornsby received some help from Young Hyundai and others she knew, but now the party was sponsored by Ashby Agency and associates with American Family Insurance and hosted by Young Hyundai. The dogs were not the only ones who left with treat as cookies, cold drinks, donuts and other Christmas treats were available to the humans in the room.
The K-9 officers had to get back to work by the middle of the afternoon, but the handlers were grateful for the focus on the dogs during this holiday party. The pups themselves were not exactly ready to go — what dog would be when you are getting a bunch of attention and treats just for being there? — but work had to be done.
The aftermath — which did not include any accidents — gave volunteers a chance to think about how much fun the party was and how all of the K-9 officers enjoyed the get-together.
Before you know it, it will be time to plan the next one.
“I did Search and Rescue, K-9 Search and Rescue for many years so this is near and dear to me,” said Debbie Zuurbier, a volunteer who embroidered the phrase “Serve with Honor, Protect with Pride” on 18 blankets, one for each dog. “I was happy to do the blankets. It took some time but I wanted to make sure everyone had one.
“Dogs are easier to get gifts for (compared to humans). They’re happy with anything. This was something I could chip in with.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
