New Jersey police dog, Army vet partner accept donated patriotic doghouse
Lou DiBella, left, built a patriotic doghouse for Hackettstown Police Department K-9 Jada and her partner, Ptl. Christopher Laver, an Iraq War vet. (Hackettstown Police Department)
HACKETSTTOWN, N.J. - (FOX NEWS) -- A New Jersey police dog has a new patriotic doghouse thanks to a local woodworker who built it.
Lou Dibella, of Scotch Plains, N.J., donated the special red, white and blue doghouse to K-9 Jada, a member of the Hackettstown Police Department, and the dog’s partner patrolman Christopher Laver.
“K-9 Jada received her new home on Thursday and she is very excited,” the HPD wrote on its Facebook page.
Dibella wanted to donate the doghouse to a local K-9 handler who was also a military veteran, the Lehigh Valley Express-Times reported Saturday.
Laver qualified after serving during the Iraq War with the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division’s 57th Gun-Truck Company.
Jada, a Belgian Malinois, became the Hackettstown PD’s first K-9 three years ago.
“My passion for K9 started during my deployment as I worked with and observed military explosive detection dogs,” Laver said, according to the paper’s reporting. “That’s when I learned about the Malinois breed. I had no formal K9 training until... I purchased Jada as a puppy. From that point on, I would work with K9 handlers and civilian K9 teams to learn and observe."
Hackettstown Police officials said DiBella was inspired to make the doghouse after seeing President Trump honor K-9 Conan, the military dog injured in the raid in Syria in October that killed Islamic State terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Hackettstown is about 50 miles west of New York City.
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