First there was Dakota, then Kody and now Duke.
St. Paul police officer Dave Longbehn graduated with a new K-9 partner Thursday, ending months of training and marking a fresh beginning.
In February, Longbehn's former partner Kody, a 9-year-old German shepherd, was fatally stabbed in the basement of a St. Paul home by a suspect. Kody had only two more weeks to go before he would have been able to retire from the St. Paul Police Department. His attacker was shot and killed by police.
Longbehn, a 29-year-veteran of the St. Paul police, said that the bond between officers and their dogs gets tighter as the days go by and that that'll happen with Duke, too.
"I think as K-9 handlers we probably spend more time with our dogs than we do with our family because we're with them for 10 hours while we are working and the remainder of the time they're at home with us," said Longbehn, who has been a K-9 officer since 2002.
Kody had been his partner since 2005.
Kody's death wasn't the first he experienced with the unit. His first dog, Dakota, died in 2004 after an intestinal disorder. That didn't make the transition any easier.
"It was tough. It was really tough. We were all very sad. It was a tough deal for all of us," Longbehn said, referring to his family, who also had become attached to Kody.