Died – 3\/9\/21
\nHandler – Cpl. Rob Alexander<\/p>\n
Alabama sheriff’s office mourns loss of beloved K9 deputy<\/p>\n
The Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office is mourning the loss of one of their K9 deputies Wednesday after she succumbed to her battle with cancer. Deputy Charlee, a 9-year-old black lab, served with the Sheriff\u2019s Office School Resource Officer Division and spent six years supporting children and searching for drugs in Lee County Schools, authorities with the sheriff\u2019s office said. Cpl. Rob Alexander, Charlee\u2019s partner, said he would spend all day everyday with Charlee, and the loss \u201cfeels just like losing a family member.\u201d \u201cShe was one of a kind,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cShe was like my partner 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That\u2019s how much time she spent at my side. The relationship you build with that canine versus your typical canine you have at home, I would say it was probably two-to-three times stronger because she was with me all the time.\u201d Alexander would take her on vacations with him, have her sleep on a bed next to his own and would, of course, visit county schools every day as a part of their job together. \u201cShe would look to me as if I was her best friend and she was my best friend,\u201d Alexander said. Sheriff Jay Jones said his office currently has five dogs trained to be deputies after the loss of Charlee, and that the relationship deputies have with their canine partners is instrumental to their job performance, whether that job is explosive detection, narcotics detection, search and rescue, building searches or acting as an ambassador to the public. \u201cThe bonding between handler and canine partner is a very critical component of the team, and that dog basically stays with that handler all the time at home, on patrol and even when they\u2019re off duty,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThe bond helps to establish a circumstance where the handler can read the dog\u2014their movements, their actions\u2014and they know exactly when the dog is detecting, and it helps to make the team more efficient.\u201d The obvious downside to that strong bond comes when, inevitably, the human deputies outlive their four-legged partners. \u201cTheir life on duty can generally go from about eight to maybe 10 years, and after that when they retire, they go to the care of their partner,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt can be devastating\u2014I mean, anyone who\u2019s ever owned a dog and lost that dog knows how that feels. It\u2019s losing a member of the family, and to us, our whole agency suffers the loss.\u201d Authorities with the sheriff\u2019s office said Charlee\u2019s cancer diagnosis was recent, and despite fighting valiantly she could not overcome the toll it took on her body. She passed away Tuesday. The diagnosis first came about five months ago when Charlee underwent surgery to remove a cancerous cyst from her neck. She then began receiving oral chemotherapy treatments every three weeks for about four months before scanning her and finding the cancer had spread to her spleen. \u201cThe scan showed three more spots on her spleen, and it showed that we were dealing with a very aggressive cancer that was really, really hard to slow down and, I was told, was impossible to get rid of,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cAt that time, I started knowing our days together were numbered.\u201dAlexander said, for a while, Charlee still behaved and acted like the healthy, happy and passive black lab he had known for the past six years, but that changed one day when Alexander went to his patrol car and found Charlee to be sluggish. \u201cShe was very lethargic and didn\u2019t want to get up. … She wouldn\u2019t walk and didn\u2019t move, so I rushed her to the East University vet,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cOne of the new spots on her spleen, a tumor, had ruptured and was bleeding internally into her body and caused her blood pressure and blood count to drop really low. \u2026 We had gone from a daily routine to her not wanting to move.\u201d Charlee was put on an IV to make her feel better for the short term, and Alexander said he spoke to the sheriff\u2019s office and retired her from service while she spent her final days in Alexander\u2019s care at home. After about a week, she started failing to keep her food down before she stopped eating entirely, at which point she was taken to be euthanized on Tuesday in order to be at peace. \u201cShe \u2018Crossed the Bridge\u2019 yesterday and joined her fellow law enforcement K9 officers at peace,\u201d authorities with the sheriff\u2019s office wrote in a release on Wednesday. \u201cHer pain is gone and she is free to run through endless fields. She was a good girl\u2014we will miss her.\u201d Alexander said he will always remember Charlee\u2019s bright smile and watching her ears perk up when they were together. Jones said when canine deputies pass, handlers like Alexander decide if they\u2019d like a new canine partner in the future, but for now the sheriff\u2019s office remembers and honors the dog and deputy Charlee was, and her name will be added to a K9 unit memorial outside of the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office to commemorate the talented four-legged partners who came and went before her. \u201cWe consider them a member of our agency just as much as we do a deputy sheriff of the two-legged variety,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey always have a special place with us in our agency, and we look at them as partners in our mission of protecting the public.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Died – 3\/9\/21 Handler – Cpl. Rob Alexander Alabama sheriff’s office mourns loss of beloved K9 deputy The Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office is mourning the loss of one of their K9 deputies Wednesday after she succumbed to her battle with cancer. Deputy Charlee, a 9-year-old black lab, served with the Sheriff\u2019s Office School Resource Officer …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-10315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-k9memorial","tag-al"],"yoast_head":"\n