The Tampa Police Department is hoping to trade one K9 for another with a request this week to donate a German Shepherd named “Odus” to the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in Newton County, Missouri while requesting $213,257.14 for the “unmanned robot dog” Spot.
Spot is the name for the German Shepherd-sized Boston Dynamics “agile mobile robot”. The addition of robot dogs is not new to police departments. St. Petersburg police added one in 2022; Miami-Dade added one in 2024.
A web search for successful uses of the robot dog were dominated by a 2023 story of the St. Petersburg police using Spot to “keep an eye on” a suspect barricaded in his vehicle with his child. “It allowed us to get a video feedback to make these decisions” Assistant Chief Mike Kovacsev told reporters. There are other documented uses and concerns. The base Spot Model is $98,955.10 and TPD is adding a $67,346.94 front-mounted manipulation arm and a $43,204.08 thermal inspection camera. St. Petersburg police purchased its robot dog with a private donation…