K-9 Officer Brutus retires from Genoa PD

Bru­tus, the retir­ing Genoa Town­ship Police Depart­ment K-9 offi­cer, with his part­ner, Genoa PD Offi­cer Jason Berner, is pic­tured dur­ing last Thursday’s (March 22) retire­ment cer­e­mony at the Genoa Town­ship Hall. In the back­ground, from left, are Genoa trustees Rick Carfagna, Karl Geb­hardt and Barb Lewis. (Photo by Lenny C. Lepola)

Genoa Town­ship Police Depart­ment Offi­cer Jason Berner was in cham­bers with his part­ner Bru­tus dur­ing last Thursday’s Genoa Town­ship Board of Trustees meet­ing. Berner and Bru­tus, Genoa’s K-9 offi­cer, have been part­ners for eight years.

Bru­tus, who was in cham­bers for his offi­cial retire­ment cer­e­mony, went into ser­vice in 2004, he’s 10 years old, and the lifes­pan for canine street work is 9 to 10 years.

In Jan­u­ary Genoa Police Chief Robert Tay­lor reported that Bru­tus has aged and is suf­fer­ing from degen­er­a­tive myopa­thy, a canine form of Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis. Chief Tay­lor said con­sid­er­ing Bru­tus’ age and con­di­tion, it’s time for retirement.

Bru­tus had to offi­cially retire on March 22 when his state cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ended. Unlike most humans who leave the work­place early when they retire to use up accu­mu­lated sick time and per­sonal days, Bru­tus worked right up to the wire — he did a school search last Thurs­day at West­er­ville Cen­tral High School.

Bru­tus will retire to the Berner home via a one-dollar pur­chase agreement.

“It’s bit­ter­sweet, but it’s time,” Berner said. “Eight years is a long time, it feels just like yes­ter­day, but he’s ready to spend time at home with the fam­ily. He can’t be replaced, and he won’t be; he loves my fam­ily and that’s where he’ll stay.”

Chief Tay­lor said a police department’s work­ing K-9 is worth its weight in gold.

“Bru­tus has accom­pa­nied offi­cers when they’re deliv­er­ing search war­rants, has done drug searches and track­ing,” Tay­lor said. “He’s retir­ing from police ser­vice and will be full-time pro­tec­tion and com­pan­ion­ship for Kelly and the kids.

Berner said before he left home ear­lier in the evening, his son Jack­son, who shares his bed­room with Bru­tus, removed a one-dollar bill from his piggy bank so he could pay for Bru­tus. Fol­low­ing a brief retire­ment cer­e­mony, Jack­son handed the dol­lar bill to Chief Tay­lor, mak­ing the trans­fer of own­er­ship official.

Asked what he thought of Bru­tus, Jack­son replied: “He’s my favorite dog.”

The Genoa PD has raised over $10,000 in dona­tions for a replace­ment K-9 with proper train­ing. The effort was funded in large part thanks to a $6,000 dona­tion from William H. Davis, Dorothy M. Davis and William C. Davis of the Davis Foundation.

Dur­ing the Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 2, board of trustees meet­ing the trustees approved the pur­chase of a new police dog to replace Bru­tus. Before the trustees voted to approve the pur­chase, Chief Tay­lor said that all donated money will go to the K-9 Fund for the care and train­ing of the new canine.

The new Genoa Town­ship K-9 was pur­chased from Azzi Inter­na­tional Canine Ser­vices for $7,250.

“We’ve used Azzi Inter­na­tional before, they have a good prod­uct,” Berner said in Feb­ru­ary. “The dog we’re look­ing at is 26 months old, trained in Ger­many for Ger­man police.”

Berner said the new Genoa PD K-9 is ken­neled at the Berner res­i­dence, has started a six-week train­ing course to pre­pare for state cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and – it must be a gen­er­a­tion gap – does not get along with Brutus.

Posted by Gary Henery on Mar 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.