Crime-Stopper Bows Out

Ajax and Officer Tom Bruce hit the streets in 1993, fighting crime in Cypress. Over the years, the team caught nearly 40 people involved in felonies such as carjackings, armed robberies and shootings.

This month, the German shepherd has retired early, due to a recent diagnosis of spondylosis, a degenerative bone disease.

“Ajax is enjoying retirement life,” said Bruce. Ajax, who turned 9 years old Saturday, now spends his days wandering around Bruce’s backyard or sprawled on the grass.

“Every now and then he’ll get away with lying on the couch and watching TV,” Bruce said with a grin.

Rest and relaxation is a huge departure for the 74-pound, black-haired and brown-eyed dog accustomed to chasing bad guys.

Ajax, pronounced “Eye-yax,” has captured a liquor store burglary suspect climbing up a 6-foot high barbed wire fence. The dog’s nose has sniffed out a car theft suspect hiding in an attic. Once, the team was getting ready to leave a crime scene when Ajax began barking fiercely and dragged Bruce to nearby bushes.

“It was like he was saying, ‘Wait a minute. I’m not done,’ ” Bruce said.

Ajax wasn’t.

He led officers to a suspect laying low.

“He was the best partner . . . always on the lookout,” Bruce said.

Ajax was born and trained in the Czech Republic. Because Czech dogs are traditionally used for border patrol, he and Bruce went through five weeks of training before patrolling the city.

Since he’s been ill, Ajax has been in lower spirits, Bruce said. “He’s frustrated for not going to work.”

Ajax is on painkillers, steroids and thyroid medication for the disease, which is common among German shepherds. Bruce and his wife, Kim, dote on Ajax and their other German shepherd, Niko.

“They’re like our kids, since we don’t have any,” Kim Bruce said.

Tom Bruce is thankful for the time that he had working with Ajax.

“It was my lifelong dream to be a canine [officer],” said Bruce, who has worked in Cypress for 11 years. “And I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.”