On Thursday, Nov. 20, the Maysville Police Department (MPD) will host a class teaching law enforcement officers about animal cruelty and animal fighting investigations. During the course, the MPD, Mason County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), Mason County Attorney’s Office and Humane World for Animals will learn from other law enforcement officers how to best be equipped to handle these types of cases.

MPD Assistant Police Chief Chris Conley was the one who got the ball rolling for this course.

“In August, Chief and I went to the chief’s conference — it’s called KACP conference, the Kentucky Association for Chiefs of Police — and they hosted this year in Northern Kentucky,” Conley explained. “Of course, like any conference, they had a ton of vendors and one of those vendors was the National Humane Society.”

Conley stated that at the conference, he met Todd Blevins, the Kentucky State Director for the Humane Society of the United States. They began to discuss animal cruelty and animal fighting cases, and Conley told Blevins he wanted to do more to help the community, asking what the Humane Society could offer to “help educate our guys a little better.”

Blevins told Conley about the classes they offer for law enforcement, by law enforcement.

Nicole Jergovic, the Program Manager for the Law Enforcement Training Center (LETC) at Humane World for Animals (formerly known as the Humane Society of the United States), created a flyer for Conley to give out to other local law enforcement officers, animal control, humane investigators, code enforcement officers, veterinarians and prosecutors.

Although the free eight-hour training course is only open to law enforcement, animal control, humane investigators, code enforcement officers, veterinarians and prosecutors, the invitation is open not only to Mason County, but other surrounding counties as well.

Conley believes that the training will be incredibly beneficial, not only to the MPD but all entities who plan to attend the training.

“Dogs are something that we deal with, but maybe not always daily, and now it’s getting to be more frequent,” he expressed. “I don’t want us to make a bad decision and it reflects badly; not only on the police department but the city, the community.”

Blevins explained that each training is tailored to those in attendance, stating, “We try to tailor the training to officers that maybe have some experience with animal cases all the way to those that, I mean, maybe they get called out and they are not sure what to do.”

He then noted that these trainings are increasingly growing in demand.

“The beauty and the curse of it is that it is so in demand. The trainings are so in demand, and not just in Kentucky but nationwide,” Blevins stated. “We only have a limited number of trainers, but the important thing about the trainers is that all of our trainers are either current law enforcement themselves or former law enforcement, because that’s the most natural way to do it — law enforcement teaching law enforcement.”

He noted that a good turnout could mean additional course opportunities down the road.

“The one thing that I will say that is tough for our law enforcement officers here in Kentucky is, our laws are very, very toothless. They are very weak. And so, they don’t have a lot to work with to begin with,” Blevins expressed, “but the point of the class is to try and help them get the tools that they need that they are able to enforce, the cases that they can, with the limited legal law that we have.

“This is a really good opportunity for all of the agencies; not just the host agencies, the Sheriff’s Office, the PD, the County Attorney’s office, but all of the other agencies that are coming to show that they are taking animal cruelty seriously.”

Ellie Sood with the LETC stated that this training will be the 34th in Kentucky since 2020, 17 of them virtual and 16 in person. During that time, 1,131 officers and professionals have been trained, 497 virtually and 634 in person. There were 23 attendees in 2020, 246 in 2021, 407 in 2022, 54 in 2023, 285 in 2024 and 116 attendees in 2025, to date.

This year, there have been a total of 85 trainings nationwide through LETC, as well as 5,722 total attendees nationwide.

Topics of the course include:

Considerations for assessing potential violations and different solutions/remedies;

The link between animal abuse and other violent crimes, including domestic violence;

Report writing, warrants, recognizing and collecting relevant evidence; and

Interpreting and applying cruelty and fighting laws.

The course will also aid in continuing education for law enforcement and certification. Other courses are available and may be offered if this training is considered a success.

Other courses include:

Equine investigations, farm animal investigations, police/dog encounters, family violence and animal cruelty, veterinary forensics in animal investigations, advanced animal fighting investigations, advanced animal cruelty investigations, large-scale neglect investigations, commercial breeding facility investigations, pet store investigations, animal crimes investigations and the 4th Amendment, testifying about animal crimes, community policing and animal protection, community engagement and de-escalation, community cats and animal control officers, In it for the long haul: Combatting compassion fatigue and enhancing resiliency, and Trauma-informed sheltering: Rehabilitating rescued animals using a holistic approach.

Mason County Sheriff Ryan Swolsky stated that he is happy the MPD took the initiative bring this training to Mason County.

“We are looking forward to this to aid in our animal related investigations in the county. Thank you MPD for spearheading this,” concluded Swolsky.

The class will take place at the Mason County Extension Office from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.