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Died – 7/18/16
Jackson’s former police dog euthanized
The Jackson Police Department’s most recent police dog, Stryker, made his last visit to the station Monday to say goodbye to his former co-workers. Veterinarians had discovered the German shepherd was suffering from advanced cancer and had to be euthanized. Stryker served from 2007 until his retirement in 2015. Jackson’s current K-9 officer, Cody Polley, and his partner, Beny, succeded Stryker in November and said even though he never served with Stryker, it was a sad day for those who remembered seeing him around the station. “I actually picked him up with his old handler and took him for one last car ride so everyone could see him,” he said. “Let him hang around the station one last time.” The special relationship between an officer and his K-9 partner makes such situations difficult, Polley said. “I would say it’s a very strong bond,” he said. “We spend a lot of time around each other; I mean, they’re our partner. Even when we’re not working, they live at home with us. They take care of us.” He said Stryker retired with an impressive career, as police dogs normally serve between eight and nine years. Like their human counterparts, a K-9 unit’s duties vary, depending on the dispatches at hand. Typically, the dogs are most useful at finding narcotics — they’re trained to find cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin — and apprehending resistant suspects. “We train once a week, and a lot of it is just keeping them sharp on narcotics [detection] and tracking,” he said. Polley and 2-year-old Beny train at Riverview K-9 in Cape Girardeau.
