Community members, well-wishers and peers on two legs and four came out en masse Tuesday evening to pay their final respects to Ike, a Vancouver Police Department dog killed in the line of duty earlier this month.
By all accounts, Ike was a good dog.
His sergeant praised his skill at plunging into briars or crawl spaces after suspects; his chief, his enthusiasm for the job; and his handler, his constancy as a partner and friend.
Vancouver Officer Jack Anderson, Ike’s handler, said until losing Ike, he didn’t realize how much people appreciate the efforts of police officers.
“I think we in law enforcement sometimes lose our perspective,” he said. “I want to say thank you, to all of you, for helping bring back my perspective.”
About 250 to 300 people showed up at to the Hilton Vancouver Washington on Tuesday, where volunteers holding flags — and roughly 50 police K-9 teams from Washington, Oregon and Canada — lined the sidewalk around the hotel to welcome them.
Ike was helping track a suspect the evening of Sept. 1. When the dog found him, the man allegedly stabbed Ike multiple times, according to court records.
Ike was taken to DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital in Portland to treat stab wounds to his chest, back and head. Following complications with Ike’s surgery, he was euthanized the next day.
Anderson said he’s heard people call Ike a hero. That’s not a label he uses lightly.
“It was just our job, it was something we did, something Ike loved,” Anderson said. But, he added, “reflecting back on the past three years with Ike and what I saw on Sept. 1, I would have to say I agree. I believe Ike is as close to a hero as a dog can get.”
Ike, a 6-year-old Belgian malinois, started working with the department in 2012, Vancouver police Chief James McElvain said.
Ike was trained for tracking people and drugs, and had 450 deployments under his collar, along with more than 60 captures. He also was one of the regional SWAT team’s dogs.
“They are hand-selected and trained to work in our profession, which they absolutely love,” McElvain said. “There is nothing more exciting to a police K-9 than seeing their handler getting ready for work. They just turn on like a light switch.”
At Tuesday’s ceremony, the department gave Anderson its Purple Heart award on Ike’s behalf, and the Washington State Police Canine Association presented Anderson with its Medal of Valor for Ike.
Vancouver police Sgt. Joe Graaff, the supervisor for the department’s K-9 teams, said many of his fondest memories in policing included working with dogs such as Ike.
But along with all the successful missions or funny moments on the job, he said, are the things “that knock the air out of our lungs,” things like what happened to Ike earlier this month.
Two other police dogs have died on duty in the past several years in Clark County: A suspect stabbed Clark County Sheriff’s Office dog Kane in 2011; another suspect shot sheriff’s office dog Dakota in 2007.
“The loss of a police dog comes with the uneasy knowledge that all in law enforcement and the community at large struggle to accept: That the dog is expendable,” Graaff said. “They will die to save us.”
Had it not been for those dogs, it might have been an officer, he said.
Anderson, his wife and two daughters buried Ike on their property Sept. 2, under a cross with the dog’s name and the abbreviation for “end of watch.”
After the burial, he asked his daughters if having Ike in their family was worth it.
“I asked if they would trade our time with Ike knowing that it would end like this,” Anderson said. “With tears in their eyes, they both said no.
“I say hell no. I’d do it over again in a heartbeat.”
