He is described as a “working line” German Shepherd Dog, but with over 72,000 Instagram followers, six year old police K9, “Sonny,” could also be called a rock star. His owner/handler, Clinton Police corporal Jason Frey, simply wanted to show all the different sides of Sonny when he started the dog’s Instagram page, and show it he did: From the shepherd’s tender side with the Frey baby, to his working side and the success he’s been part of in helping remove drugs and drug paraphernalia off the streets. Sonny is a certified patrol and narcotics detection dog, and his job includes apprehension work and tracking suspects, lost people, and objects. Because Sonny understands only German commands, we presume he was bred in Germany, and Frey, while he says he doesn’t speak German, is firm and direct when speaking German to Sonny.  “That way you can’t control him,” says Frey. “Only I can.”

The Dodo, a popular site among many dog lovers (their Facebook page alone has over 40 million followers) took notice of Sonny’s popularity and highlighted the dog and his handler in two separate videos. Here is one of them:

We bet the video made a lot of you nervous for the baby. We believe that young kids and dogs should never be left unsupervised for a few reasons, and clearly an adult was in the room videotaping the Sonny and the baby, but it also occurs to us how conditioned many of us have become to expect the worst in dog/infant interactions. We expect that an experienced K9 handler like Frey knows his dog. Frey himself attributes Sonny’s social media success to his honest portrayal of life with Sonny.  “I wasn’t trying to portray anything other than what we actually do at work and what we actually had for a home life and how he was treated,” said Frey.

Sonny and Jason have also been featured on the Clinton CT Police Department’s Facebook page. Clinton CT Police Chief. Vincent DeMaio, says, “You can see how the outreach of Sonny and Jason have brought Clinton across the globe.”

We support our men and women in blue, and certainly their dogs,  so it’s a pleasure to share such a story. The image of Sonny in the snow comes from his Instagram page.