K-9 Officer Breagh Pyburn with K-9 partner Rocket. A.M. Sheehan
PARIS — Canadian born and raised Breagh Pyburn, 35, of Paris always knew she wanted to be in law enforcement. Her childhood dream was to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
She’s not sure where this dream came from as no one in her family is in law enforcement, “but I always had it.”
Instead, while working for Air Canada, she met an American, married and emigrated to the U.S. While the marriage didn’t last, it did help her achieve her dream.
Graduating from SMCC with a criminal justice degree, Pyburn went to work for the Scarborough Police Department and, eventually, met her partner … Rocket.
Rocket is a four-year-old Belgian malinois. He is trained in apprehension, evidence, tracking, obedience, agility and currently in training for narcotics. Rocket and Pyburn train with Law Enforcement Dogs of Maine which trains more than 30 teams from all over the state.
Pyburn, who was with Scarborough for seven years, met her husband Jeremy at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy when she started with Scarborough. They reconnected in 2021 the same year she got Rocket and the couple moved to Paris.
She continued working for Scarborough until after she had a baby and realized the hour-long commute was simply too much with a new baby. She had finally come to terms with leaving law enforcement when the position with the Paris Police Department opened up.
“It was like the stars aligned,” she says.
So in May, she and Rocket began working for PPD.
“I had to go back [into law enforcement], it’s who I am.”
She and her husband, his mother and a neighbor, share caring for their son.
Pyburn thinks Rocket will most likely be busy with drugs and tracking in the Oxford Hills. K-9 teams often get called for agency assists so Rocket and Pyburn could be quite busy.
Pyburn is also trained in drug interdiction and Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement but, as she says, has put most of her eggs in the K-9 training basket.
“In Scarborough, getting to be a K-9 officer was quite competitive so I spent a lot of my personal time training and learning.” When a position became open she was ready. She says she never foresaw leaving Scarborough, imagining she would eventually work her way into a supervisory position.
Paris is a much smaller agency she says, but she is quite happy and she just wants to “work my dog.”
“I love proactive work,” she says, “having contact with people. I like to look beyond [the obvious] and dig deeper.
Pyburn and Rocket work days. “I love the people I work with,” she says, “and just want to keep my head down and do my job.
And while more children might be in her future, she’s firm that she has “unfinished business with law enforcement” and won’t be leaving anytime soon.
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