The Frisco Police Department will soon have a new type of member on its force—the K-9 type. Because of a $40,000 grant from Elevate Life Church, the department is in the process of developing a K-9 program, Police Chief John Bruce said. "[Church leaders] wanted to reach out, and Pastor [Keith] Craft, the lead pastor, wanted for his church, that is so blessed, to give back to the community somehow," Bruce said. "Service and leadership are the key words from their church, and they wanted to model that back to us who are in the service industry." The K-9 unit will be used primarily for sniffing out drugs, but also for tracking missing people or someone who has run from police, Bruce said. "One of the primary [reasons for the K-9 unit] is for narcotics," he said. "I'm not naive enough to say that 'Oh no, we don't have drugs in Frisco.' Drugs are everywhere. And with that, we don't know to what extent they are just passing through Frisco. "A K-9's sense of smell is so much better than a human's," he said. "That's where that training comes in, is when a human can understand what the dog is trying to tell them." The program will start out with one officer and one dog, Bruce said. The officer will be chosen from applicants within the current FPD ranks, and that officer will then be involved in selecting the dog. The grant money is expected to pay for the dog, training for the dog and officer, kennels and a vest for the dog. It will also pay for the outfitting of one of the police department's current SUVs to make it safe for the dog, both while the vehicle is in motion and in case the dog is left in the car alone. "From the estimates the staff has pulled together, we believe that [$40,000] will cover us starting this program," Bruce said. For training of the handler and dog, FPD is planning to partner with a neighboring agency that already has established K-9 units. FPD is leaning toward a partnership with the McKinney Police Department for its training, Bruce said. "[Police departments] do [shared training] primarily so that the techniques are all similar," he said. "It allows their officers to see how our officers do things, how our dog does things, because we will still interact and collaborate with these other departments." Initial training could take as long as 12 weeks and Bruce said the K-9 team will continue to train once per week after that. The officer and dog will be paired full-time, and the team will perform the duties of any other officer as well as the specific duties of the K-9 unit, Bruce said.