Looking for a way to give back to police officers, and especially the K-9 units which serve Chautauqua County, Beckstrom decided to craft handmade dog collars, key fobs and bracelets.

After originally distributing the items to her hometown Ellicott Police Department, Beckstrom wanted to expand the show of support to other departments.

“I just wanted to do something for everybody,” Beckstrom said. “I did the collars for all of the dogs, it says ‘K-9 Hero’ on it. I like to do craft things, and I initially did just the town of Ellicott. Just a thank you saying it is so nice to have you out and about. I see your cars, I feel safe being alone at home.”

During her career as a nurse at Southwestern Central School, Beckstrom became friends with New York State trooper Jason Cresanti and his family.

When it came time to organize and plan the show of appreciation, she had the perfect connection.

“Gretchen is an avid dog lover,” said Cresanti, who handles K-9 Kara. “Her father was a dog handler in the military and due to the climate she reached out to us and said that she wanted to do something special for all of the K-9 handlers in the county. Then from that it extrapolated, she wanted to do something for all of the police officers in the county.”

Also in attendance were K-9 Drake, who is handled by Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Beichner, and K-9 Bentley, who is handled by Deputy Dana Kapuscinski.

When crafting the dog collars out of paracord, a lightweight string originally designed for parachutes, Beckstrom contacted Cresanti to make sure that she was on the right track.

“I didn’t know how big to make the chains. I worked with Jason’s wife at Southwestern. She said he would stop down with the dog, so we measured it and of course it was too big and we had to make it smaller,” Beckstrom said.

After a change in size, the collars were ready to go, along with the other items.

Friday’s gathering also served as a reminder of the importance of collaboration between local law enforcement departments, and the vital role that K-9 deputies can play.

“We all work together, we all train together, and we depend on our K-9 partners to expedite a process,” Cresanti said. “We depend on our K-9 partners to offer protection to the handler, to other officers. Their senses are obviously better than ours, so if we are looking for people, sometimes we may not notice them but a dog can either smell them or see them.”

K-9 units can be trained to detect a wide range of illicit materials like explosives, weapons and narcotics, and are equally important as human scent trackers.

Last week, Lakewood-Busti Police Chief John Bentley reported that K-9 deputies had successfully been used to locate stolen property as well as a firearm in separate incidents.

“We want to relay that we are always here and we are here for the community, we are here for (Gretchen) and we appreciate what she has done for us,” Cresanti said.

K-9 Drake and K-9 Bentley are both 4-year-old German Shepherd/Belgian Malinois mixes, and Kara is a 2-year old Dutch Shepherd.