HAZEL DELL — The group that manages several off-leash dog parks in Clark County honored Vancouver police dog Ike Monday by rechristening its largest park in his name.
Ike died from stab wounds sustained during a pursuit of a suspect in September. DOGPAW, the local nonprofit that built, maintains and manages the county’s five off-leash parks, in a ceremony at the former Ross Park in Hazel Dell, renamed the 8-acre park the Ike Memorial Dog Park.
Mark Watson, vice president of operations for DOGPAW, unveiled an engraved marker with Ike’s name and likeness to dedicate the park and presented Vancouver Police Department Officer Jack Anderson, Ike’s handler, with a plaque honoring the K-9.
“Thank you for everything,” Watson said. “It’s the least that we could do.”
A couple of dozen community members and their dogs, along with several police dog-officer teams, attended.
Four of the organization’s five parks are named for local police dogs that died in the line of duty.
The Dakota Dog Park, just east of Vancouver near Northeast 162nd Avenue and 18th Street, is named for a Vancouver Police Deppartment dog shot and killed in 2007.
In Hockinson, the small Kane Dog Park bears the name of a sheriff’s dog stabbed in 2011. A park in Brush Prairie is named for Lucky, a K-9 killed in 1990.
DOGPAW, which stands for Dog Owners Group for Park Access in Washington, leases the park near the Bonneville Power Administration’s Ross Substation from the BPA. The Ike Memorial Dog Park was the organization’s first park, and is its largest.
The man who stabbed Ike pleaded guilty to harming a police dog and other crimes in March, and he was sentenced to 50 months in prison.
“Obviously, we don’t want to name them after dogs, we don’t want dogs to be dying, but when they do, we want to make sure we support the police and let the community know what the animals have done for them,” said Mark Fruechtel, DOGPAW president.
Previously, DOGPAW has helped put on police dog demonstrations for the community and helped raise money to pay for Washougal’s police dog, Ranger.
“DOGPAW’s very much in the thick of whatever we can do to support the police and their animals and the community,” he said. “It’s the little things like this that the community needs to be a part of.”
Police dogs are “police officers, as far as we’re concerned,” he added.
