Arizona State tennis team donates balls to ASU Police K-9s
TEMPE, Ariz. - Arizona State's women's tennis team is helping keep the police K-9 officers on its campus happy girls and boys.
The team is donating its tennis balls to their four-legged friends who keep them safe.
What they're saying:
The ASU tennis team goes through a lot of tennis balls during the season, and rather than throwing them away, they repurpose them for a good cause.
"Where there's going to be a lot of people, our job is just to do a pre-sweep, making sure there are no explosives on the site before people show up," ASU Police Officer Vincent Williams said.
The K-9s have several responsibilities. One of them is sniffing out explosive devices.
'They're looking for explosives'
The unit trains once a week, and on Feb. 13, training took place at Mullet Arena.
"They're looking for explosives, so like TNT, dynamite, black powder, nitrate," Officer Williams said.
When the dog completes a task, he or she gets a reward. That reward is a tennis ball.
"We use tennis balls all the time. Ever since then, they've just been giving us tennis balls after they're finished," Officer Williams said. "We use that as a reward, so all the dogs, they're all toy-driven dogs. Any time they give us an alert, a positive alert, we reward them with a tennis ball."
Big picture view:
Without this newly formed partnership, the department would have to purchase the balls. That can be costly with the amount they go through.
He says it will also keep them from bouncing from store to store looking for other toys for their K-9 partners.