The Cook County Sheriff's Police Department's Canine Unit was created in 1997 and consisted of eight police service dogs. Throughout the years the unit grew and expanded to fourteen police service dogs. Currently the Canine Unit consists of twelve police service dogs.

The Sheriff's Police K-9 Unit's primary responsibility is to assist the Patrol Division and any specialized units with calls for service that require the use of a K-9. The K-9 Unit is also available to assist any outside Law Enforcement agency that requests the use of a K-9. The Unit has assisted many of the Federal Law Enforcement agencies, the Illinois State Police and numerous local Law Enforcement agencies. In 2007 the Unit assisted over 75 different Law Enforcement agencies. The K-9 Unit also performs over a hundred public service demonstrations a year giving thousands of individuals from children to the elderly an opportunity to socialize and learn about police service dogs.

The K-9 Unit currently has ten dual purpose narcotics/utilities K-9's and one single purpose narcotics K-9 which is assigned to the Narcotics Unit. These K-9's are a mixture of German Shepards and Malinois. The dual purpose K-9's are capable of detecting narcotics, tracking for persons, performing building searches, area searches, performing evidence serches and handler protection. The training division is also currently training a Bloodhound which will specialize in scent discrimination for trailing of suspects and explosive detector dogs that are assigned to the Bomb Unit.

The training and continuing maintenance training is all performed by an Officer in the Unit that is a certified Police Service Dog Trainer and a Master Trainer with the North American Police Work Dog Association. The Unit also offers a 240 hour K-9 Basic Handlers Course that is certified by the Illinois State Training Board. Providing this training is one aspect of the Sheriff's Police Department's commitment to assisting local Law Enforcement.