Police Dogs

James Symington is experiencing an extreme case of deja vu. The former Halifax, Canada, police officer's partner, Trakr, died in April. But on Wednesday, Symington took home five clones of the German shepherd as the winner of a contest run by a business that does stem-cell research and microengineering. In his career as a search-and-rescue dog, Trakr helped recover more than $1 million in stolen goods and sniffed out the final survivor in the rubble of the World Trade Center after the Sept.

San Diego officers shot and killed a 50-year-old man who lunged at them with a 10-inch knife after his wife had made a panicky call to police for help, authorities said Friday. Willard Anthony Bradley stabbed a police dog before advancing on officers, police said. Bradley was pronounced dead at the scene. His 50-year-old wife, whose name was not disclosed, was found dead in the living room of their home in the Paradise Hills neighborhood.

A veteran San Diego police officer pleaded no contest Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of animal neglect. Officer Paul Hubka, a 22-year veteran of the department, was ordered to pay a $411 fine and $4,941 in restitution for the death of his police dog. The dog, a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, died of heatstroke after being left in the back of Hubka's police car on a day when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees.

The khat dog sniffed out his final smuggler at LAX on Tuesday. After that, Shiloh the beagle high-tailed it home to Long Beach to live the high life with his handler, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Canine Enforcement Officer Donna Kercher. For nearly eight years Shiloh's keen sense of smell uncovered fruits, vegetables and other foods possibly infested with dangerous insects that were carried illegally into the United States by international travelers.

A Lawndale man was arrested by Redondo Beach police Monday, accused of threatening the life of a family member and stabbing a police dog, authorities said. Jimmie Lunceford, 39, allegedly stabbed the dog, apparently in an effort to get officers to shoot him, said Lt. Joe Hoffman, a spokesman for the department. Lunceford was arrested on felony counts of making terrorist threats, inflicting injury on a police dog and attempted burglary, along with misdemeanor evading arrest.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America's fight against movie piracy has gone to the dogs. The organization told Agence France-Presse that British customs authorities have trained two Labrador retrievers to sniff out counterfeit DVDs. They are working at the Federal Express operation at Stansted Airport, near London. The dogs were trained over eight months to identify DVDs that may be in boxes, envelopes or other packaging, Agence France-Presse reported.

A police dog who was left in a pickup in Ogden with the engine running apparently knocked the vehicle into gear and ran down a woman as she walked to her mailbox. Mary F. Stone, 41, was hospitalized with a fractured pelvis and tailbone. The dog, a German shepherd named Ranger, had been left in the truck while his handler responded to a call, police Lt. Loring Draper said. The truck's engine was on so Ranger would have air conditioning.

A one-eyed police dog that sank his teeth into a cop instead of a crook is at the center of a lawsuit filed by the wounded officer. Santa Ana Police Sgt. Bruce Leamer has sued the city and his own department, saying their investigation into the incident was rigged in favor of Ygor, a 7-year-old Belgian malinois. Leamer, 48, and another officer were searching a garage for a burglar in June 2005 when Ygor latched onto Leamer's leg and dragged him across the floor, according to the suit.

The New York Police Department has deployed the first K-9 units devoted exclusively to the subway, the city's top transit officer said Monday. "We have four out there now, with another three to follow by mid-December," said James P. Hall, chief of the NYPD's Transit Bureau. "They won't work anywhere else but the subway." The last K-9 unit dedicated solely to mass transit was disbanded in the 1980s, but Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly revived the idea in January.

Using a police dog to sniff a car's exterior for drugs does not violate the privacy rights of a stopped motorist, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, even if the officers had no reason to suspect the car or its occupants were carrying drugs. When added to prior rulings, the high court's 6-2 decision appears to give police broad, but not unlimited, authority to use canines to sniff for drugs -- or bombs -- whether on roads or in schools, airports and office buildings.