Beckley Police Department says goodbye to Artie the Bloodhound<\/p>\n
9\/4\/15
\nWest Virginia<\/p>\n
Artie was a good dog. She never hurt a soul and she always did a good job, Beckley Police said. That made it even harder for her partner to say goodbye. \u201cShe passed away Friday night at the vet,\u201d Cpl. J.W. Legursky said. \u201cI was with her. It makes me feel a bit better to know that I was with her and that she knew I was with her. She didn\u2019t die alone.\u201d It might sound strange to think that a police dog never hurt anyone, but Artie was not a normal police dog. She was a bloodhound and they\u2019re more known for their floppy ears than their sharp teeth. \u201cArtie was chill,\u201d Cpl. Legursky said. \u201cYou could take her into classrooms. She was harmless. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t trained to apprehend or bite or anything like that. By nature, those dogs are laid-back.\u201d Artie was often called on to track down missing people and bad guys, Cpl. Legursky said. \u201cThe thing about tracking is that it\u2019s the least likely case to get a hit,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re tracking what isn\u2019t there. Drugs are usually there and a bad guy is usually there when you send a dog to bite. With Artie, she tracked something that was invisible. You\u2019re almost set up to fail. \u201cThat just makes our record more special. We found probably four or five people. We probably had seven or eight after-the-fact finds. Those would be when places get robbed and Artie would have led us to a house or a car that was used in the robbery.\u201d Cpl. Legursky said he and Artie were never called to track missing children. Mostly because children didn\u2019t go missing, he said. \u201cI\u2019m thankful for that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe majority of our finds were missing Alzheimer\u2019s patients.\u201d It was a hard loss, but Cpl. Legursky said he\u2019ll get back into the K-9 world if it\u2019s offered to him. \u201cTears were shed for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cArtie was a member of the family. She\u2019s not just a pet. She was a partner. It\u2019s still a bit of an empty household for us. \u201cTo get another dog would have to be a family decision. I\u2019d gladly do it, but I\u2019d have to talk about it with my wife. I feel like this is what I was called on to do, though. Some people do traffic, but I love K-9 work.\u201d Officials in the Beckley Police Department say it will be hard to fill the role that Artie had. \u201cThis happened so suddenly that we don\u2019t have a plan,\u201d Deputy Chief Jeff McPeake said. \u201cI hate to say that, but we never expected this to happen. \u201cDogs die, but they\u2019re part of us. They\u2019ve earned their stripes and they\u2019re a police officer. You can never truly replace them. Sure, we can get another dog, but it\u2019s just not the same. We\u2019ll always remember Artie for the good she did.\u201d McPeake said Artie was a great dog to take to events. \u201cShe was one of the few police dogs that kids were able to pet,\u201d he said. \u201cA kid wants to pet every dog they see. Most police dogs are trained to be intimidating, but bloodhounds are different. \u201cThose you can encourage kids to hug on them and pet on them. That\u2019s really what we\u2019ll miss. We\u2019ll try to and find another dog like Artie, but we can\u2019t replace Artie.\u201d Cpl. Legursky is the School Resource Officer at Park Middle School. He used to bring Artie into classrooms and everything else, McPeake said. \u201cThe kids were as attached to that dog as Cpl. Legursky was,\u201d he said. \u201cThey see that dog and there\u2019s some trauma there that has to be considered.\u201d To help the kids and the community to cope with the loss of Artie, a donation drive is being put together in her name. Officials at Park Middle School and the Beckley Police Department are raising money and supplies for the Raleigh County Humane Society. \u201cWe wanted something that the community could get involved in with the school and the police department,\u201d McPeake said. \u201cWe want to celebrate Artie\u2019s life.\u201d Even in passing, Artie continues to give back to the community, Legursky said. \u201cThis gives people the chance to say \u2018Artie touched my life so I want to give back to her memory,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m glad they\u2019re putting this together.\u201d Artie was laid to rest at the Beckley Police Department Training Range, which police say is \u201ca sacred place\u201d to officers. If you would like to donate to the Artie Fund, you can drop off pet supplies or money at Park Middle School or at the Beckley Police Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beckley Police Department says goodbye to Artie the Bloodhound 9\/4\/15 West Virginia Artie was a good dog. She never hurt a soul and she always did a good job, Beckley Police said. That made it even harder for her partner to say goodbye. \u201cShe passed away Friday night at the vet,\u201d Cpl. J.W. Legursky said. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-k9memorial","tag-wv"],"yoast_head":"\n