The frantic search for Haso – a retired K-9 who has been credited with saving many lives in his four years as an active member of the Eri County Sheriff’s Office – has come to a shocking end.
Haso was found dead around 4:30 p.m. on Friday, and the Kataraugus County Sheriff suspected the dog may have been intentionally injured. An active criminal investigation is under way.
The dog’s body was found about half a mile from its owner’s house in West Valley, said Captain Jordan Haynes, the chief of detectives, who came across the dog after a signal followed. It was clear to lawmakers that Haso had not died from dehydration or exposure, he said.
“The way he died is such that a criminal investigation will be launched,” he said.
Haynes said he could not give more details because investigators are still questioning people. He said he expects more information to be released on Saturday.
Following a report from the sheriff’s office, the entire crime bureau went looking for the dog, Haynes said.
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Haso’s body was taken to Cornell University for an autopsy.
Neighbors, friends and even professional dog detectives volunteered to search for the K-9, which had been missing since Monday night.
Haso’s owner, Deputy Richard Lundberg, was worried after Haso fled on Monday night and did not return to the house until Tuesday morning.
Lundberg lives in Kataraugus County, with hundreds of acres of forest. This made the search difficult. ATVs and surveillance cameras were used to search for Haso.
Buffalo News wrote about Haso in January 2020, when the dog was among the K-9 retirees, when marijuana was legalized in New York State, compromising their training to detect illegal drugs.
Both Lundberg and Haso left the K-9 at the same time.
Apollo is still jumping, barking and wagging his tail when Erie County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Galbraith puts on police gear every morning. For three years, the 6-year-old German Shepherd worked for Galbraith as a drug detection dog and tracker. But Apollo is no longer going to work with Galbraith. Last spring, the sheriff’s office unceremoniously retired Apollo, though
Haso played a key role in the arrest of a city parking mechanic and deputy teacher. After lawmakers stopped the car of a Scajaquada expressway official, K-9 found a bag of cocaine hidden in a side vent on the dashboard. The sheriff’s office seized half a kilo of cocaine, 15 grams of fentanyl and $ 7,500 in cash from the couple’s car.
Lundberg also spoke about Haso’s gifts as a tracker. K-9 sniffed the pajamas of an elderly man Clarence with dementia who had walked away one night. Haso traced the smell in the woods and found it.
“There are at least eight people who would not be alive today if it were not for him,” Lundberg said Wednesday.
Lundberg said he released Haso from his kennel around 7:45 p.m. Monday and entered his garage in four minutes. When the deputy returned, Haso was gone. The MP used his security cameras and suspected that something had caught the dog’s attention, which made him fly away.
Lundberg and friends rode ATVs through the woods, leaving Lundberg pieces of clothing and bedding with their scent on them to give Haso a fragrant trail home.
The Erie County Sheriff posted information about the missing K-9 on social media on Wednesday.
A dog search group called Sherlock Bones has helped with the search effort. Lundberg said on Thursday that they had found what they considered to be Haso’s trail.
Lundberg hoped that Haso, a professional tracker, had simply lost his way home or was alive but wounded or stuck somewhere. But he said Wednesday that his biggest fear is that Haso, a dog in perfect health on Monday, is no longer alive.
“This is the hardest thing,” he said.
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