Day in the life of a Seattle Police K9

By Rachel Belle

Listen to Feature: Day in the Life of a Seattle Police K9 Dog

Seattle is dog crazy. You may have heard that the city is home to more dogs than children. But not all the pooches are being pampered, wearing sweaters and doing doggy yoga. Some dogs get up every morning and go to work. Hagi is a 7-year-old German Shepherd, who works with Seattle Police K9 handler Kirk Waldorf. Hagi works hard: When he’s not in the field, he’s training up to two hours every day.

“I think they’re the happiest types of dog in the world, better than anyone’s pet who lays around in their apartment or house all day long,” Waldorf says. “He gets to come out here and do what dogs instinctually get to do: Hunt. He gets to have fun and run around the city. I don’t think there’s better life for a dog than actually having a purpose in life and working real hard. They love the work.”

Hagi doesn’t wear a cape or tights, but he’s definitely a crime fighting superhero.

“He’s apprehended murderers, he’s apprehended rapists, child molesters, lots of robbers, burglars. He’s just done it all and I don’t think his best years are behind him.”

Hagi was on the scene on Rattlesnake Ridge, when police were raiding Peter Keller’s bunker and he’s obviously protected his owner many times.

“He saved my life, I mean, that’s not just a platitude or some a silly statement. He actually saved my life from getting shot.”

Waldorf says they were tracking down an armed robber in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, weaving behind houses and through alleyways when they came face to face with the suspect.

“I see her coming up, pulling a gun out of her waistband, so he immediately bites her, takes her attention off me and I was able to hit her in the face and knock her back. She dropped the gun and it went skittering off. Had it not been for him, there’s no way I would have noticed her in time. If it wasn’t for him, she would have shot me or some other officer coming up to apprehend her.”

He says that police dogs aren’t like what you see in the movies; they aren’t vicious attack dogs.

“You saw the dog, you already met him. He’s not malicious, he doesn’t hate people. He does what he does because he enjoys it. He doesn’t enjoy hurting people, he enjoys finding people. The game is to locate.”

And he won’t just randomly attack, he’s trained to only bite on command, and even then it’s a single bite and hold.

“If you were to attack me, that is a cue for him, he can come in and bite and apprehend on his own. If I’m in trouble, he can save me. Otherwise, he won’t bite unless I give him the command to bite.”

But Hagi doesn’t go around biting criminals on a regular basis. Waldorf says the dog is often used to scare people, and if he does bite, paperwork must be filled out, just the same as if any other weapon were used. The dog is mostly used to use it’s incredibly sensitive nose to track people down.

“We shed about 40,000 dead skin cells a minute, or about 50 million a day, and that’s what the dog uses to track. Human beings have about 5 million olfactory cells in their nose, a dog has about 220 million. So that’s about 44 times our ability to smell. Also, a dog has about 12 percent of his brain dedicated to processing that scent, whereas a human being has less than half of one percent.”

Waldorf says he spends more time with Hagi than he does with his wife and kids, and he takes him home every night. So when the dogs retire, the officers usually buy them from the city. But after retirement, the city no longer pays for the dog’s care.

“What they have is a retired dog fund that reimburses officers for things like surgery and terminal care and even euthanasia.”

Click here to to support the Retired Seattle Police Canine Fund, to help old, hard working police dogs live comfortable lives after retirement.