Long Paw of the Law : Boris Is Nearing Retirement, but He Hasn’t Lost a Step When It Comes to Sniffing Out Crime

After 56 years on the job, Officer Boris is getting a little tired.

Oh sure, he can still run faster than any other cop in the Redondo Beach Police Department. He can still sniff out a suspect better than even the most astute TV detective. And when necessary, he can still chomp down on a perpetrator’s arm like a shark on a hunk of meat.

But after more than five dog-year decades of chasing down multitudes of assorted felons--car thieves, burglars, bank robbers and most recently a murder suspect--Boris is not a pup anymore. The time is fast approaching when Boris is going to have to finally hang up his badge and go back to just being a dog.

Boris the K-9 dog has put in his retirement papers. And while for obvious reasons it is hard to say how Boris feels about his impending retirement this summer, it is clear that the prospect of Boris pulling the pin almost breaks his partner’s heart.

“You just kind of assume he’s always going to be there,” said Officer Ken Greenleaf, who for the past eight years--that’s 56 years in dog terms--has been Boris’ partner, handler and full-time best friend. “It’ll be a lot different without him.”

Greenleaf is a big, strapping 36-year-old--he is 6-feet-6 and weighs in at 260 pounds--and like many cops he is not given to outward expressions of emotion. But even he gets a little misty around the eyes when he talks about Boris.

“Yeah, I love that dog,” Greenleaf said. “I know I’ll never have another dog like him.”

Greenleaf and Boris first met in 1985. Boris was a puppy then, and a recent immigrant to America. Born in Germany, at age 10 months he had been sold to Bakersfield Kennels, a company that provides police dogs to law enforcement agencies. (For both physical and aesthetic reasons, German shepherds from Germany are considered better for police work than American German shepherds.) His full name was Boris von der Holzheimer Strasse, and he understood only German.

Greenleaf, meanwhile, was a young Redondo Beach police officer, a local kid who had worked for a couple of police departments in Colorado before coming back home in 1982 and joining the 100-officer Redondo Beach force. He had worked around police dogs before, and was interested in becoming a handler.

The Redondo Beach department had started its K-9 program in 1978, one of the first departments in the South Bay to do so. Although some Los Angeles-area community groups recently have leveled criticisms against the use of K-9s, saying that too often they seriously injure suspects, Redondo Lt. Jeff Cameron says the advantages of using police dogs far outweigh the disadvantages.

“The primary benefit is officer safety,” Cameron said. “The dogs are a tool that we can use in situations where a human officer’s life would be put in serious jeopardy.” Also, he said, dogs can sometimes search an area for a suspect much more quickly and efficiently than an entire squad of human officers.

Finally, Cameron said, using a K-9 to detain a suspect often can be an alternative to deadly force.

“I firmly believe that K-9s have saved officers’ lives, they’ve saved citizens’ lives and they’ve saved suspects’ lives,” Cameron said.

After Greenleaf qualified for the K-9 team, Redondo Beach police paid the Bakersfield firm $4,500 for Boris and the two weeks of training Greenleaf underwent with him. Greenleaf learned how to handle the dog, and vice versa, and learned how to give commands in German--” Pfui !” for “No!,” “ Pass Auf !” for “Watch!,” ’ Gut hunde !” for “Good dog!,” and so on.

Greenleaf says the use of German instead of English is mostly a matter of “public relations,” that is, people think it’s cool. K-9 cops think it’s cool too.

Boris hit the streets in August, 1985, one of three police dogs in the Redondo Beach department. At 14 months old, he was the youngest police dog the Redondo police had ever hired.

Greenleaf remembers the night Boris caught his first burglary suspect. The guy was climbing over a fence when Boris got hold of his leg. Greenleaf was yelling “ Packen! Packen! ,” which means “take hold of.” But the burglar thought Greenleaf was telling Boris to “let go,” so the burglar started yelling “ Packen! Packen! “ too.

Greenleaf still gets a chuckle out of that one.

Like most K-9s, Boris worked the night shift, which in Redondo Beach is 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., four days a week. Over the years Boris personally caught about 65 suspects and participated in hundreds of other arrests.

Boris also has won a slew of awards at K-9 competitions over the years. An upstairs bedroom at Greenleaf’s Redondo Beach home is crammed with trophies from the Police Olympics, the Police World Games and other events.

Boris’ personal life is simple. He works when Greenleaf works, and he is off when Greenleaf is off. He lives at Greenleaf’s home with Greenleaf and his wife, Ginger, and their 15-year-old daughter, Gina. He eats about 40 pounds of dog food a month, paid for by the Police Department. He is the father of 12, having sired two litters of puppies.

Greenleaf says he does not know of any other K-9 that has served as long as Boris. The average, Greenleaf said, is only three to five years.

But Boris is getting old. He turned 9 in March, which is 63 in dog years. In recent years he has had his spleen and a benign tumor from his neck removed. In December he had surgery on a pinched nerve. At 115 pounds, he is about 10 pounds overweight.

“He’s not as quick as he used to be, he doesn’t run as fast, he’s just kind of generally slowing down,” Greenleaf said. “When we look for a suspect he goes 100%, he’s like a puppy again, but the rest of the time, well . . .”

He did not finish the sentence. The sad truth is obvious. Boris has to retire. When he does, Greenleaf will buy him from the department for a symbolic $1. Boris will spend the rest of his days at Greenleaf’s home, and Greenleaf probably will get another K-9 partner.

Unfortunately, K-9s, like many regular cops, often do not thrive in retirement.

But until retirement day rolls around, probably in August, Boris will still be out there, four nights a week, ready, as always, to take a bite out of crime.