Tom GantertOrlando, FL – The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is reconsidering how they name their police dogs after memes of their very real K9 Trump went viral.
One meme showed a picture of an Orange County Sheriff’s Office K9 patrol vehicle with a decal featuring the dog’s name and picture on the window, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Underneath the picture and the moniker “Trump” were the words “Making a Difference.”
Text on the meme, which was posted to Facebook by Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 93 and went wildly viral, read “Atta Boy, Trump! Making a difference.”
Another meme featured a picture of the K9 patrol vehicle with the words “Ma’am, my police service dog is detecting an odor from your vehicle,” atop the outraged millennial meme photo.
The Orange County sheriff’s department confirmed that they do, in fact, have a K9 officer named Trump, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
K9 Trump was acquired by the sheriff’s department in March of 2018 and began working patrol in June of 2018, Orlando Weekly reported.
The sheriff’s office also said they were aware of the memes featuring K9 Trump that are being shared on social media.
The naming of the sheriff’s department’s police dogs is left up to their human police K9 handlers, and there are currently no rules governing how the animals can be named, according to a written statement from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
“In the future, the Sheriff’s Office may consider directing Deputies to avoid naming their K9 partners after real people,” the statement said, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Most police departments have some own rules for naming police K9 officers, Deputy Sheriff Tod Goodyear of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office told the Associated Press.
“Sometimes the sheriff has the option to name the dog something specific,” Sheriff Goodyear said. “The trainer can put forth a name he’d like to use for the dog and that can happen as long as there’s approval from command staff and the sheriff.”
He said sometimes dogs are named in honor of the manner in which they are acquired by that department.
“For instance, JetBlue donated two dogs to us, one’s now named Jet and the other is Blue,” the sheriff said. “We’ve also let the citizens of the county put a name forth, so that’s how Jake got his name, which is named for a former sheriff.”