ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Irondequoit Police Department is starting a K-9 unit, and one local business just made that a bit easier.

Vision Automotive gifted the IPD an SUV to kickstart their K-9 program. The Irondequoit Police Department used to have a K-9 unit, but it was disbanded a couple years ago due to lack of funds.

But now, it’s bringing it back.

The department will be bringing in two Belgian Malinois at the end of February. But, before they get here, IPD has to prepare. A large portion of that preparation is getting cars to transport the dogs, that’s when Vision Automotive helped by gifting them an SUV.

However, a lot of things have to be done to the cars before the department is able to use them.

“We have a laundry list. So we actually have an insert that goes in in the back that’s actually a cage for the for the dogs protects them. So, they’re able to actually stand up, get in, get out. We have a piece equipment called the hot pop situation, our sensor. So it detects the temperature inside the vehicle. So if it gets too hot, the doors are automatically opened up so the dogs can escape so they don’t die inside there. But there’s also a remote control switch that the officers all wear on their body if they’re having trouble and actually fighting with somebody, they can actually remotely open up the door so the dog can get out there and actually do that,” Irondequoit Police Chief Scott Peters said.

Once here, these dogs will already be trained to conduct building searches and know all of the basic commands. And then they’ll go through training to detect nitrates — like bombs or guns.