Oct 30, 2019
The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Transit Police K-9, Kubo, has become the proud recipient of a custom designed protective vest, thanks to the fund-raising efforts of 10-year-old Brady Snakovsky of Strongsville.
The vest was donated by MMI Textiles of Westlake and manufactured by Line of Defense in Canada, which makes vests and tactical equipment for Military, Police, Security and K-9 applications.
The young Snakovsky started Brady’s K-9 Fund in 2018 with the “mission to donate practical, mission ready vests to as many police K-9s as possible.” Since then he has raised enough money to vest more than 130 K-9 officers with another 60 on a waiting list.
Kubo is RTA’s only dual-purpose K-9 officer (bomb and patrol), and was put on Brady’s K-9 Fund waiting list last spring after Brady met RTA’s K-9 team. See it here.
MMI Textiles’ National Account Manager, Geoff Senko, heard of Brady’s K-9 Fund and wanted to get involved. Because Senko’s grandfather, Sgt. Ken Houck, served as a police officer, Kubo’s vest is designed with a special patch in memory of Sgt. Houck.
The vests are custom fit and made of bullet proof, moisture-wicking material and are designed to be worn all day. Vests costs about $1000 and take about 90 days to manufacture.
Officer Dennis Harmon is Kubo's handler. Kubo is a German Shepard born on June 14, 2016 from Slovakia and is RTA’s only dual purpose canine officer trained in the areas of explosive odor detection, patrol, tracking and aggression and building and area search. The team regularly works events such as the Cleveland National Air Show and recently participated in one of the nation’s largest D-Day reenactments held in Conneaut, Ohio in July 2018. Kubo and Officer Harmon perform safety checks on buses, trains and at train stations to ensure the safety of all who travel on RTA.
