The LCO Tribal Police Department lost a teammate recently, according to their Facebook page. K9 Ferdo passed away due to health reasons. He had been a K9 officer teamed up with LCO Investigator Henry Bearhart for the past 10 years.
Bearhart said they would have celebrated 10 years on October 30 of this year.
Bearhart grew up on the LCO Reservation and became a police officer with the St. Croix Tribal Police in 2002. While there, he attended the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department K9 Academy for patrol training. He spent another 10 weeks in narcotics training.
In 2005 Bearhart was teamed up with his first K9 officer Koda, a black lab who was later diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease. Koda was retired in 2006 and that’s when K9 Ferdo became his new partner.
“Since we became a team, we've been involved in many drug searches with vehicles and homes. We've been in schools from Washburn, WI down to Auburn, WI. K9 Ferdo helped get a lot of drugs off the streets, helped tracked bad guys and helped find elderly folks that have wandered from home,” Bearhart said on the LCO Police Facebook page.
K9 Ferdo was a dual purpose Czech Shepherd, which means he was trained in narcotic detection and patrol.
Ferdo joined Bearhart at St. Croix and came over to LCO in 2015 with Bearhart when he was hired as an investigator for the department.
“K9 Ferdo will be missed by many officers that he served next to and missed greatly by his family,” the LCO Police stated.
“Thank you buddy for being the best partner an officer can have,” Bearhart said.
Last Update: Oct 17, 2016 7:45 am CDT
