Last Friday morning, San Luis Penitentiary Complex No. 1 was the scene of an event that closed one stage and opened another. With the presence of the Minister of Security, Nancy Sosa, and the highest police and penitentiary authorities of the province, the first fourteen canine handlers trained within the framework of the 1st National Penitentiary-Police Canine Leveling Course graduated, an unprecedented initiative that brought together two provincial forces and transcended the borders of San Luis by also incorporating a member of the Salta Penitentiary Service.
The training was carried out internally for twelve consecutive days of hospitalization, a requirement that speaks of the intensity of the training process. The students—nine from the provincial Penitentiary Service, four from the San Luis Police and one from the Salta force—acquired technical knowledge in handling, training and driving working dogs for security, defense and force tasks. But the course went beyond technique: emphasis was also placed on building the bond between the handler and his canine companion, a relationship that, according to the instructors, is based on trust, communication and mutual respect.
“Working with operational dogs requires discipline, perseverance, sensitivity and perseverance. It is not only about giving orders, but about understanding their behavior and enhancing their instinctive abilities,” was one of the central concepts that ran through the training sessions.
The teaching staff was made up of 1st assistant Javier Reynoso, of the Provincial Penitentiary Service, and deputy commissioner César Andrés Sosa, national canine instructor of the San Luis Police, along with sergeants José Héctor Jofré and Héctor Martín Lucero, the extra sergeant Roberto Emilio Onis, and field assistants José Luis Suárez Palacios, Lucas Alfredo Soto and Lucas Alberto Agüero.
The point of distinction of the course was the participation of Javier Catoni, a Pampa businessman and founder of Special Missions, a tactical and security training base based in La Pampa that is positioned as the largest in Latin America and with global projection. The center, specialized in the training of security forces, armed forces and civil training in areas such as K9, defense and operational tactics, has participated in international conflicts and was convened within the framework of operations against drug trafficking in Mexico. Its incorporation as a training reference for the course reinforced the elite profile of the training.
In 2026, Special Missions took another step in its expansion by incorporating state-of-the-art military helicopters of the MD 530 type – with top-level avionics and military equipment -, being the only private organization in the country to have this aircraft and to train combat instructors specialized in it, after a two-year training carried out in the United States.
The closing ceremony also brought together the general director of the penitentiary complexes, Karina Mantelli; to the deputy director Carlos Zarandón; to the Chief of Police, Juan Carlos Serrano; and his deputy boss, Javier Miranda, as well as family members of the graduates who accompanied a day that marked, for many of those present, the beginning of a new professional stage.
With this first promotion of jointly trained canine guides, San Luis lays the foundations of a specialty that combines technical rigor, animal welfare and a vocation for service — and that will be on the streets and prisons of the province when security requires it.
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