Blue Penciled : Police Dept.’s Top Dog Turns in Badge

In the five years he patrolled the mean streets of Los Angeles, he was knifed, beaten with a hammer and pounded with a pipe. But crooks never succeeded in stopping the Los Angeles Police Department’s top tracker from taking a bite out of crime.

Time, however, has apparently done to Blue what no bad guy ever could.

The German shepherd retired Thursday from the department’s 12-dog K-9 unit, the victim of a congenital spinal cord disease.

The ever-alert canine, whose discipline on-duty and gentle disposition off-duty made him a celebrity among cops and residents alike, has less than four months to live before he is to be put to sleep.

Already, the tops of Blue’s paws have grown numb, and he appears older than other 7 year olds of his breed.

“It’s a sad day,” Blue’s master, Sgt. Mark W. Mooring, said, fighting back tears. “He did a lot for this department.”

Blue will spend his remaining weeks at Mooring’s home in Malibu, sleeping in Mooring’s bedroom and playing with the sergeant’s two young children.

“I keep telling him it’s all right, that he’s still a good dog, but he knows something’s wrong,” Mooring, 35, said as he stroked his partner’s neck during a press conference at the Police Department’s Central Bureau. “He can’t understand why he can’t do his favorite thing anymore . . . to go with me to work.”

Blue was selected in 1980 as one of the Police Department’s first two tracking dogs. The other dog was retired for “performance” reasons not long afterward, according to officials.

Blue became the role model for other members of the K-9 unit, and it didn’t take long for the animal’s abilities and determination to become legend.

In August, 1981, while sniffing out burglars hiding in a business in South-Central Los Angeles, Blue was slashed on his left front paw by one of the suspects. In the seconds that followed, the suspect wrestled at least four officers, Mooring among them, before breaking free.

The suspect hadn’t reckoned with Blue. Although bleeding badly from the one-inch gash on his paw, the lawdog bit the suspect first on the ankle, then on the thigh, then in the groin. Surrender was immediate.

During his career, Blue conducted 734 searches and captured 253 felony suspects--including killers, armed robbers and rapists. He was credited more than once with saving the lives of endangered police officers.

Last week, while searching for an armed robbery suspect, Mooring noticed that Blue was “walking funny.” When his partner found the suspect and the two tangled, Mooring noticed that “he wasn’t the old dog he used to be.”

Mooring said he took Blue to a veterinarian, who diagnosed the spinal disease, degenerative myelopathy.

On Thursday, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates showed up at Blue’s press conference to heap high praise on the dog he decribed as “my favorite for many, many years.”

“He knows no fear,” the chief said of Blue. “He’s a wonderful, wonderful dog.”