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The Great Falls Police Department has named two officers as handlers of the new K-9 police dogs that are set to arrive in the next several months.

Officers Otis Dilley and Clint Houston were selected after successfully completing the interview process.

Houston will leave for K-9 handler training in the Fall of 2011, and Dilley will go through training in the Spring of 2012.

The goal is to have both officers and their new partners ready to go before June 2012.

Houston said of the inbound K-9s, "They're an added tool, and not to make people think of them as that, but they're going to be doing searches and tracks and building searches. Every time we get an alarm call, if we've got a K-9 unit available, they're going to go that direction. So they really are a very unique tool."

Dilley added, "Now we'll have 'em on three shifts and that's just going to be an added asset that we really desperately need."

The officers also get to pick the name of their K-9 partner.

On Tuesday, they started going through the list of proposed names submitted by by residents and school children.

The police department currently has two K-9 dogs, with one scheduled for retirement when the new K-9's arrive.