By Mike Archbold
The News Tribune
AUBURN, Wash. — Auburn police will say goodbye to one of their own this afternoon.
Ronin, one of the department’s two police service dogs, died June 6, succumbing quickly to a lung infection.
The 5-year-old dog died as Officer Dan O’Neil, Ronin’s partner, was racing north from Auburn to a veterinary surgeon in Kirkland. Ronin’s lungs had filled with fluid. O’Neil had his police car lights and the emergency radio running.
He said Ronin died in a place and with the sounds he lived for.
“The thing Ronin loved the most was being in the police car and running code,” said O’Neil, 30.
No one’s sure what caused the infection, but O’Neil speculates Ronin picked up a thorn of some kind in his chest while tracking. It might have worked through his fur into the chest cavity, where it eventually abscessed.
Ronin came to work the night before he died but didn’t leave the police car. By morning he was sick.
“It was very sad around here,” Auburn Assistant police Chief Bob Karnofski said of the atmosphere on June 6. “Part of it was for Dan and knowing what he was going through. Part of it was because the officers know the dogs.”
The German shepherd came to the department from Germany in November 2004 as a tracker and teamed up with O’Neil.
During their service, O’Neil and Ronin deployed on 298 tracks, Karnofski said. Of those, 103 ended in capturing a suspect and 51 resulted in recovery of evidence.
K9 dogs can be either trackers or work narcotics. The department has another tracker dog named Myk and a narcotics dog in training.
The dogs live with their handlers and work together exclusively. The bond that develops between them is deep, Karnofski said.
“It’s not a pet. It’s a working animal but you get to know it and rely on it to protect you,” he said.
O’Neil said the 97-pound dog lived to work. “He had so much drive. That dog was born to be a police dog and he was good at it,” he said.
He recalled one 90-minute track that Ronin made in Federal Way that ended with the dog finding a pistol tossed in some bushes by a serial rapist. Anthony Casper Dias was sentenced last month to more than 200 years in prison; he still faces trial for rapes in King County.
“Few dogs could have done that,” O’Neil said.
The officer said he hasn’t decided whether he will stay a dog handler.
Pet Haven, an animal cemetery in Kent, provides free cremation, an urn and, if desired, a headstone for all service dogs who die. Pet Haven handled Ronin’s cremation.
Vaughn McPhail, Pet Haven director, said he’s also planning to create a memorial for service dogs, but hasn’t come up with a design yet.
The Washington State Police Canine Association has a K9 memorial at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Center in Burien. It recognizes police service dogs killed in the line of duty.
There are 10 dogs listed on the memorial, including three from Pierce County law enforcement departments.
Copyright 2008 The News Tribune