K-9 Odin retires after eight years with RPD

He’s not one to relax. Even off duty, K-9 Odin isn’t prone to sprawling out or rolling onto his back the way a regular dog might. He stays coiled, alert, ready — always in what his handler, Captain Chad Brown of the Rhinelander Police Department, describes as “a ready position.”
That relentless drive never left him. Two days before his retirement ceremony at City Hall Friday, Odin made one last drug find at an area school, locating contraband tucked in an unusual hiding spot that most dogs would have missed. Brown said he’ll never forget it.
“It’s going to be very memorable to me, because it was his last deployment, and he worked so hard to find it,” Brown said. “It shows me that his drive is never going to go away.”
Odin officially retired at noon Friday after nearly eight years with the Rhinelander Police Department, capping a career that included roughly 350 deployments and countless community appearances — including numerous school visits — that never made it into any official statistics but left a mark on the city all the same.
The retirement party drew sponsors, community supporters, and department staff to celebrate a dog whose program has been funded entirely through donations since its inception.

“I can’t thank the community enough,” Brown said. “We are unable to have the canines without the community support.”
Odin, a dual-trained patrol dog certified in both apprehension and narcotics detection, joined the department in September 2018 when he was about 17 months old. He has lived with Brown and his family for his entire tenure — an arrangement that made Friday’s milestone all the more personal.
“It’s a very emotional day,” Brown said. “It’s been hard, and it will be very hard at noon.”
Brown noted that Odin had already been phased off the more physically demanding apprehension work late in 2025 as his age began to show. The German Shepherd’s back has progressively weakened, and the daily wear of climbing in and out of a patrol vehicle took its toll. Still, his drug certification remained active until this month — and his instincts and intensity remained sharp to the end as demonstrated by his final drug find.
Police Chief Josh Chiamulera reflected on the years working alongside Odin, including his own memorable encounters with the dog during training exercises.
“I wore the decoy suit, and there’s extra padding you can wear under the suit,” he explained. “It didn’t matter what you showed to this guy — he bit where he wanted.”
Chiamulera noted that Odin’s reach extended well beyond Rhinelander. Working alongside Price County and Lincoln County canine units, Odin trained in marijuana detection and was regularly called upon by neighboring departments. Over the course of his career, Brown calculated Odin was deployed roughly every three days on average. He was also involved in helping to find lost citizens.
Canines have skills that humans don’t have, including vision and hearing, that are invaluable to law enforcement, Brown noted.
“Just about everything about them is something humans don’t possess, so he’s a tool that’s helped this community immensely,” he said.
Northern Paws veterinary clinic provided medical care for Odin throughout his entire career — a continuity that Chiamulera called a significant asset.
“They knew him from a little pup to now his retirement,” he said. “Being able to stick with one vet was a huge asset.”
As for what comes next: not much will change at home, Brown said. Odin will stay with the Brown family, sharing space with two younger dogs who have always understood the pecking order. The red ball Odin held in his mouth Friday — the “off switch,” used to keep him calm in crowds — will presumably see less official use.
“He’s never going to truly know that he’s retiring,” Brown said. “But I think he’ll associate the fact that he doesn’t come with me anymore.”
The department will retain one active canine, K-9 Jason, and does not plan to add a second dog to replace Odin’s slot. Chiamulera said he’s confident one dog is the right fit for a department of Rhinelander’s size, though he made clear that won’t be changing anytime soon.
“Absolutely, 100%, we’re going to have one canine at our department — hopefully long beyond my retirement,” he said.
When Brown was asked which of Odin’s accomplishments he was proudest of. He didn’t hesitate.
“Locating missing people — that was the main goal I had,” he said. “To help in a way that law enforcement wasn’t otherwise able to. And he has.”