Posted on 10/12/2003 9:06:18 AM PDT by The Other Harry
October 11, 2003
Forget the gold watch — retiring S.C. cops gets partner for $1
By PEGGY TOWNSEND
Sentinel staff writer
This is not the dog is question. It is just an example of the breed. Colors can vary.)
SANTA CRUZ — When officer Carey Lindgren turns in his badge after 29 years with the Santa Cruz Police Department today, he’ll take something special with him.
His police dog, Yourie, an energetic Belgium Malanois who loves having his ears scratched, will be going home with the longtime patrol officer.
But for awhile, Lindgren worried that wouldn’t be the case — and it triggered a rescue effort that moved across the country at hyperspeed.
Within the space of a day, messages and phone calls began poring in to the Sentinel and the police department from people who’d heard the dog, named Yourie, was going to be euthanized if Lindgren couldn’t come up with the $9,800 it costs to buy and train a police dog.
"It made me awesomely upset," said Denise Gosnay, president of the Mid-Atlantic German Shepherd Rescue group, who sent out a flurry of e-mails Thursday asking people to protest after getting a phone call to her Maryland home.
But the story wasn’t exactly true.
Lt. Lee Sepulveda, who headed the Police Department’s canine unit until a recent transfer to the Investigation Bureau, said there were never any plans to kill the dog — a point emphasized by Chief Steve Belcher.
Department policy is to either return the dog to be retrained so it can be sold to another police department, or sell it to the retiring officer.
The problem was apparently the price.
Lindgren said he believed he was going to have pay about $5,000 for Yourie, who is not only trained as an attack dog, but for narcotics work. It was a price, he said, he couldn’t afford.
Sepulveda said a price would have to be set by Marv Gangloff of Mar-Ken International, who sells and trains police dogs for law enforcement agencies throughout the west.
But that was a difficult task, because Yourie, a sleek, golden-haired animal responded only to Lindgren, Gangloff said Friday.
"Out of 100 dogs, 5 percent are a one-man dog, and Yourie is one of those dogs," Gangloff said before Yourie set off on a search and attack training mission through the old Salz Tannery.
"How do you sell a dog like that?"
Late Friday morning, Lindgren got the news.
The dog with whom he had rode patrol for the past two years, and a dog, Lindgren is convinced, would have laid down his life for him, was going to be transferred to Lindgren for $1.
"I’m buying Yourie," Lindgren said, "and taking him home."
Contact Peggy Townsend atptownsend@santa-cruz.com.
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The very long-standing bond between humans and dogs makes a canine an excellent partner. Your dog will take a bullet for you without ever having to think about his own safety.
Even without knowing all of that, who couldn't understand what a great idea this is?
I once watched a police dog do something no human being in their right mind would ever have done. It's a good story, but it's a little too long to tell in detail. Basically, it went into a dark warehouse in the middle of the night.
I have a friend who was a dog-handler in in Vietnam. I have another friend who was a medic.
These aren't jobs that too many people care to talk much about.
I have yet another friend who used to fly Cobra gunships. He liked to fire nails at the gooks. I have no respect for him.
I had a friend who was a sergent on the Salinas (CA) police department. I did a couple ride-alongs with him. He was an ex-Marine.
As you may know, police work is 95% boredom, 5% terror. And sergents are not supposed to to inititate. They are supposed to suppervise.
One night we caught a call at a warehouse. Silent alarm. Open door. Another officer was already on site, standing behind his car. We pulled in behind him. I was told to stay in the car.
Both cops had their hands on their pistols. Their pistols were not drawn, but they weren't too far from it. They discussed the situation. They took their time.
They ultimately called in a dog unit.
It took some more time time for that to show up. There was more talk. Much. The whole thing probably took an hour.
Then the dog officer got the dog out of his car and approached the open door from an angle. The dog went inside.
A few minutes later, it came back out, wagging its tail. Nothing there.
But you can't know this in advance. I found it terrifying.
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