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Died 10/20/20
Handler – Deputy Ben Fye
St. Louis County Sheriff’s K-9 Diesel Passes
We are grieving deeply, and reeling a bit, too. This morning, for the second time in a week, we had to say goodbye to a hero – St. Louis County Sheriff’s K-9 Diesel. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his partner, Deputy Fye, who calls K-9 Diesel a “great partner, companion, and a huge part of what made me the K-9 Deputy that I have become.” While K-9 Diesel’s retirement had never been officially announced, he has been off duty for several months due to a degenerative spinal issue. He’d had several surgeries, and was doing well – until this weekend when he suddenly lost function in his rear legs. Advice from the vet following an MRI was that additional surgery had minimal chance for success, and so the difficult decision was made to end Diesel’s suffering. K-9 Diesel was just shy of his 8th birthday and had worked for the SLC Sheriff’s Office since 2014. In their too short time together, Diesel and Deputy Fye were a tremendously successful team. K-9 Diesel was deployed more than 300 times and had many notable apprehensions, including a man who’d been firing a semi-automatic rifle in a Proctor neighborhood, a drug dealer armed with a large knife, and a man who’d broken into a couple’s home and held them at gun point. K-9 Diesel forever holds a special piece of our hearts here at the Foundation as he was one of the first K-9s we helped fund in our first year. He was a favorite at our Operation K-9 events whether demonstrating agility moves or being featured in grand finale demonstrations (remember the year he and Deputy Fye jumped out of a helicopter?) If ever there was a doubt about the bond among handlers and the respect they have for their K-9 partners, it was rewarding to see how many fellow handlers and officers gathered today to bid farewell to K-9 Diesel with a final salute.Thank you, Diesel, for your many years of service. You made our community safer and protected your handler multiple times. You have set the bar high for other K-9s, and we will never forget you.
