James O'Rourke

jorourke@lohud.com

Rookie is a 1 1/2-year-old German shepherd purchased by Ramapo in February

Officer Andres Sanchez has handled one other police dog beside Rookie%2C Cerbie%2C who died unexpectedly in 2012 at the age of 2

The Yonkers Police Department has operated a K-9 training program since the 1980s and is one of the few departments in the region to offer such a service

A day after completing the Yonkers Police Department's K-9 Academy, Rookie, Ramapo's newest service dog, made his first save, locating a missing New City teenager.

Jorge Hernandez-Rodriguez, 19, argued with a family member Thursday before disappearing about 11 a.m. into the woods near South Central Highway, Clarkstown police said.

Concerned over his emotional state, the teen's family contacted authorities. Clarkstown then enlisted the help of the Ramapo and Haverstraw police departments, the Rockland County Sheriff's Office, the state police and the state park police and park rangers.

After an extensive search, police found Hernandez-Rodriguez about 3:45 p.m. near Central Highway and South Mountain Road, near the border of New City and Haverstraw, authorities said. He was physically unharmed, but was evaluated by members of the Haverstraw Ambulance Corps and taken to an area hospital.

Clarkstown police said Rookie and Ramapo Police Officer Andres Sanchez, the dog's handler, were the first to locate the teen after tracking him for about a half-mile.

"Rookie is fresh out of school and we had our first successful track," Sanchez said hours after the save. "It was awesome."

Rookie, a 1 ½-year-old German shepherd, was born in Holland and purchased through Castle's K-9, a Pennsylvania broker that seeks out law enforcement dogs overseas and sells them in the U.S. Sanchez said the dog has been in training since March.

On Wednesday, Rookie was one of six dogs to celebrate the completion of a 17-week course with the Yonkers Police Department, which trains police dogs from across the region. Along with tracking and searching for missing persons, Rookie's skills include several other elements of police work, including building search and narcotics and bomb detection.

The Yonkers K-9 handler, Officer Chris Barca, who has handled police dogs for 14 years, said the animals are a truly valuable tool.

"A dog's nose is something like a million times more powerful than a human's. Their sense of smell is irreplaceable in terms of looking for someone who is lost or missing," Barca said. "If you come home and your wife is making dinner, you smell beef stew. He smells the potatoes, carrots and onions — each individual odor all at once."

Barca said Rookie was consistently at the head of the pack during these last few weeks of training, but Sanchez credited Yonkers police for the dog's success.

"If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have the dog we have today," he said.

Twitter: @JORourkeT800