The newest four-legged member of the Cass County Sheriff’s Office’s dedicated bloodhound program is officially in training.
KJ, named in memory of Kelly Jerue, a 911 dispatcher who lost her battle with cancer in the fall, will help enhance the Sheriff’s Office’s capabilities in search and rescue operations, as well as in tracking missing persons and assisting with investigations. She begins her training under the watchful eyes of Deputy Tiffany Luna, and of course, alongside K9 Deputy Britton, named after Deputy Shane Britton, who lost his life in a car accident while responding to a call.
KJ joined the team in February and already has captured the hearts of all who have met her. Her eagerness to learn is evident in how curious she is and how quickly she is adapting to her new role. With Deputy Luna’s expertise in training bloodhounds and Britton’s guidance, it’s expected KJ will be ready to track within a year.
“Britton is going to be six in April, so by the time I get the puppy trained, Britton will be seven and hopefully we’ll get about three more years out of her,” Deputy Luna said. “She’s really solid right now, but the puppy will need those years to catch on to what Britton is doing. So, to keep the program going, we decided to continue with another dog now.”
Britton follows in the paw-steps of K9 Deputy Nellie, the first bloodhound in Cass County.
Cass County’s dedicated bloodhound program is unique. While many counties throughout Michigan have K9 units for narcotics and patrol, bloodhounds specifically for trailing are not as available throughout Michigan.
“Every dog has that vulnerable nasal organ (located right above the palate of their mouth), but it’s not quite as attune as the Bloodhound,” Deputy Luna said. “I’m not saying that a Sheperd or other types of dogs can’t do it if they are trained, but I’ve only worked with Bookhounds. If you have a crime scene or a missing person and there are firemen, policemen, neighborhood people out there, Britton will not pay attention to any of their scents. They’re scent specific,” Luna said.
Britton knows when she’s on the clock. “She’s never in a harness unless she goes to work, so she knows that’s when I’m getting serious. I put her in the harness and put her on a 20-foot lead. I take the scent article, and I tell her to take scent. She smells it, and down she goes, and off we go. And she does her thing. And you have to know how to read the dog, because she’ll take you on a walk. I can tell when she gives me a negative and says, ‘Nope, not that way.’ So I say, okay, we’ll go this way. Then she’ll tell me, ‘Nope, not that way.’ She just does her thing, and we’re a team. She’s pretty spot on and that’s what KJ will learn to do.”
Right now, KJ is doing what Deputy Luna calls ‘puppy trails.’
“I’ll run and hide behind the door, and somebody will hold on to her. They let her go and she’ll follow that trail to where I’m at. We just do these little hide-and-seek things and then we build on them and make them longer,” she said.
Britton was deployed at 11 months, and has helped with several cases, including successfully finding a person who police believed could be attempting suicide, and with locating a missing youth who had drowned in a local body of water. She also helps to locate a criminal who has fled, working in conjunction with the county’s bite dog and drone program.
Deputy Luna, who worked with Bloodhounds in her previous town in Florida, has acquired dogs through the Jimmy Rice Foundation, named in memory of a young boy who was abducted and then fatally shot while trying to escape. KJ was chosen from a Bloodhound breeder in Illinois.
“I love the program,” Deputy Luna said. “It’s the best job ever.”
Follow Britton and KJ’s adventures on Facebook
Written by Jodi Marneris March 2026
