‘A DOGGONE GOOD COP’
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RCSO deputy Eathon Baker and K9 Scoty
One of the newer members on staff at the Ringgold County Sheriff’s Office is a doggone good cop. That’s K9 Scoty, the six-year-old Dutch Shepherd police dog handled by RCSO deputy Eathon Baker. A Dutch Shepherd is a cross between a Malinois, an agile, high energy breed, and a German Shepherd, a comparatively more docile breed. The goal is to mellow out the Malinois personality.
In Scoty’s case, Baker said, “it didn’t work very well. He is very high strung, very, very active.”
Scoty was born in Poland, and once he became weaned, he was exported to the Czech Republic, where he began his “bite work” for subject apprehension and handler protection. All bite commands are given in German. Once Scoty completed his bite training, he was exported to the United States, where he began his training in drug detection. Upon gaining dual certification in subject apprehension and drug detection, Scoty was first deployed with the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office.
The cost to train a dog with dual certification can run as high as $30,000, but when Wayne County decided to eliminate its K9 program, Scoty was gifted to Ringgold County without charge in the fall of 2023. That transition wasn’t without its challenges, though, because Scoty’s ongoing training had lapsed in the interim between his time in Wayne County and his arrival in Ringgold County.
“It was definitely a trust building exercise,” said Baker. “There for the first few months, I didn’t know any of his commands. I did not get to personally work with the individual that trained Scoty, so I couldn’t get any first hand knowledge on anything.”
Baker and Scoty attended a month-long course at North Iowa Canine to build their bond.
“He had already been certified,” said Baker, “so it was just a matter of building him back up from his downtime because he was without a handler and was not working for an extended period of time. It’s just a matter of working with a master trainer to basically fulfill all these requirements set forth by kind of the governing association that he’s certified through.”
Scoty is certified by the United States Police Canine Association, and Baker is required to spend a minimum of four hours each week in ongoing training with Scoty to maintain his skills.
“I learned how to be a proper canine handler,” said Baker. “We kind of work on our bond a little bit, and then it’s just a matter of doing all the bite work, doing the narcotics work, learning how to basically read the dog and understand what the dog’s telling me, knowing
what he looks like, his mannerisms. These dogs get bored very easy, and they become destructive. These are very intelligent dogs, so you have to keep their mind working.”
All the training has paid off.
From February 2024 to February 2025, Scoty has been deployed 53 times, resulting in 19 felony arrests.
On-call 24 hours a day, Baker and Scoty also work with authorities in Taylor, Union, and Decatur counties.
In fact, during a traffic stop in Union County, Scoty was responsible for locating a gun that had been used in a drive-by shooting in Taylor County.
Deputy Baker himself is no stranger to Ringgold County.
He grew up in Clearfield and attended school there through sixth grade. He then graduated from Mount Ayr High School in 2009.
After a stint in the U.S, Marine Corps, Baker returned to Clearfield, where he and his family live on a small farm. And when he is off duty, Scoty serves as the family pet, a role he will continue to play even when he retires from law enforcement.
When that time comes, Baker said he would like to train a new K9.
“I would like to get another dog that I could start out with, that I’m not picking up another dog that the former handler could have been instilling some bad tactics or ideas,” he said. “They’re a lot of work,, but I thoroughly enjoy working with the dogs.”
