LONG BEACH : Academy Cemetery Honors K-9 Heroes

Tucked away in a quiet, immaculately landscaped corner behind the Long Beach Police Academy, guarded by the sprawling branches of an old and gnarled tree, the final resting place of some of the department’s most beloved heroes can be found.

It is here that black headstones, polished to gleam like a rookie’s shoes on his first day at the job, pay tribute to a small legion of officers that expected no more than a pat on the head for saving their partners’ lives.

This is where the Long Beach Police Department buries its police dogs.

“Some people think it’s kind of silly to have this place,” said Officer Robert Stuart, whose partner of eight years, a German shepherd named Kon, was buried last month in the unnamed graveyard. “But anyone who likes animals, or just appreciates life, can see that it’s a respectful way of laying them down to rest.”

Twelve police dogs and an academy mascot--a beagle named Snoopy--lie at the cemetery, south of Carson Street near the vacant Long Beach Naval Hospital. The monuments bear names of dogs that are as unique as the stories officers swap about them: Justice, Kazan, Pax, Zeus, Bondo, Canto.

There’s Argos, who once dashed through a crowd of 150 people to save an officer who was about to lose his gun to an assailant. Another time, after Argos nabbed a robbery suspect, the man called the German Shepherd a nice-looking dog and asked officers if he was for sale.

Zeus, who died in 1985, once baffled trainers when he captured a man who had cut himself while trying to rob a woman at knifepoint. The man left a trail of blood droplets that stopped after a few feet, but the animal continued on for a block and a half, up an apartment staircase and barked at a door that had blood on its handle.

“Our dogs can (recognize) scents, but they aren’t bloodhounds,” said Sgt. Mike Kinrade, a 15-year veteran of the K-9 unit who now heads the program. “What that dog was tracking, nobody quite knows.”

The police department’s K-9 program was established in 1978. When the first dog, Kazan, demonstrated an ability to search an area much faster and more thoroughly than humans could, the program’s popularity quickly spread. Five teams were added by 1980, and today the program has 12 teams.

Kazan died while in retirement at age 14, and was buried in this green grove in 1988. But the first dog buried here was Bondo, a 4-year-old German Shepherd who died in 1982.

Bondo was chasing a man suspected of burglary when the man hit the dog’s head with a large pipe wrench. The dog was put to sleep after a series of seizures, the result of scar tissue that had formed near his brain.

Police-dog burials are handled in different ways by various departments. The Los Angeles Police Department buries police dogs on a hill behind its academy. Police dogs from several cities in Los Angeles and Orange counties are laid to rest at a general pet cemetery in Huntington Beach called Sea Breeze. Some cities cremate police dogs after memorial ceremonies.

Walking through the Long Beach graveyard on a recent hot summer morning, Kinrade, 50, is dressed casually in sweat pants and a T-shirt. His shirt has a picture of a large black Rottweiler and reads, “A true and trusting friend.” Kinrade’s first dog, a Rottweiler named Argo, was killed in a three-story fall while chasing a burglary suspect on the roof of the old Newberry’s building downtown.

Most of the dogs, however, retire at age 10 and spend their remaining years at home with their handler. At that age, “they begin to show the effects of police work almost overnight,” Kinrade said. Currently, eight police dogs are retired.

Nearly all the dogs are purchased from Germany and various Scandinavian countries at age 2, usually at a cost of about $4,000. They have had some obedience training, which gives officers a better foundation to begin the rigorous preparation for police work.

“It’s a lot tougher to find a good dog that’s bred here,” Kinrade said, adding that American breeders tend to in-breed to develop good-looking dogs, but the practice can cause health and other problems.

“The dogs end up with hip, back and even brain problems from all the in-breeding. They may look good, but you’ll get a psycho dog on your hands,” he said.

Temperament is a key concern of trainers. Kinrade said that only one in 100 dogs--even of the right breeds--qualifies for police work. “You can’t have a dog that’s a biting machine or bites out of fear,” he said. “Or think about the 4th of July, when dogs go nuts. We can’t exactly have a dog that’s afraid of gunfire.”

About 90% of the K-9 teams’ work is searching for suspects hiding from police--in residential areas, under houses, in buildings or near freeways. Most officers can cite numerous instances when their dogs have directly saved their lives by alerting them to a suspect who might be armed.

In July, which Kinrade called a fairly typical month, the teams conducted 52 searches that resulted in 19 arrests.

The K-9 teams serve other functions as well. One dog is specially trained to detect drugs. Another can sniff out weapons that have been recently fired.

To participate in the K-9 program the officers must purchase the dogs themselves. The Long Beach K-9 Officers Assn., an independent nonprofit group that boasts more than 400 members, helps pay some food and medical costs, through donations and fund raising.

The dogs and their trainers live and work together, which officers say helps the animals in social situations, such as community and school demonstrations.

“My daughter and son grew up with Kon,” said Stuart, referring to the German shepherd that died recently. “That dog was part of the family,”

Kinrade added: “You spend more time with them than you do with your family.” However, he said, “you can’t really look at this as a pet relationship. You have to rely on the dog to protect you, and the dog will lay down his life for you.”

And that, officers say, is the reason they spend about $500 apiece for headstones, which have laser-inlaid photos of the dog and handler.

“In eight years,” Stuart said, “the only reward Kon ever asked for was a pat on the head or rub on the stomach. This is just a way of showing our respect for what they did for us.”