"It's pretty amazing the stuff that he could do," said Bertuca.
Stitch, who died Aug. 2, was DuPage County's only cadaver detecting canine. He was so good at his job, he twice found human remains in bodies of water, one of the most difficult scenarios for a patrol dog.
Bertuca still remembers his first call with Stitch.
In December 2007, Bertuca and Stitch got a call from the Chicago Police Department to help search for a body. Bertuca said he remembers walking up to the South Side apartment under which police thought a body might be buried. After Bertuca asked that holes be drilled in the concrete floor, he instructed everyone to leave. Stitch followed him from hole to hole at first then picked one, sat and stared as he'd been taught.
"The hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I got chills," Bertuca said.
He lead Stitch around the basement and again the canine went back to the same hole. So Bertuca told the police Stitch had found a body. While jackhammers were brought in, the partners left, and Bertuca began to feel a little nervous.
"This is the first time my dog's doing this, and we're going to tear of up the floor in some guy's apartment," Bertuca said.
Sure enough, after tearing up the entire floor of the underground basement, under concrete and six more feet of dirt, clay and rocks, police found Eric Kaminski's fully clothed skeleton, almost four years after the Oak Lawn resident went missing.
He and Stitch went on to search many more scenes from DuPage County to Dixon, some of which Bertuca still isn't allowed to talk about. The pair cleared scenes after Drew Peterson's arrest. Bertuca said showing up to a call with every white-shirt boss just waiting for an answer never felt easy, but he trusted Stitch's skills. He knew if there was a body, Stitch would find it, and if there wasn't, the canine wouldn't waste anyone's time or energy with a false alert.
Stitch lived to work. Shortly before he died, a vet discovered several bulging discs in his spine and a tendon issue in one of his rear legs despite Stitch's lack of visible pain.
"He still wanted to go to work," Bertuca said.
Stitch, named by Bertuca's kids after the Disney character, grew up in Bertuca's home since he was just a 10-week-old puppy imported from Germany and donated to the sheriff's department by a local breeder.
Unlike many other agencies that purchase dogs between 1.5 or 2-years-old, DuPage County raises their working dogs from puppies. Patrol dogs are routinely taught to detect narcotics by a process of imprinting scents. It's taught as a game to the dogs, and once they learn how to detect once scent, others are easier to imprint. The one exception: Human remains. Many dogs shy away from cadaver detection.
With the loss of Stitch, Bertuca hopes to train what he expects to be his last canine partner before he retires. Five-month-old Kato, named after Bertuca's very first working dog, is a female German Shorthaired Pointer hired as Stitch's replacement. Bertuca, who's been training dogs for nearly two decades, says a lot of handlers are men and prefer male dogs out of pure macho mentality.
"They'll work just as hard or be just as lazy as the other gender," Bertuca said.
The dog-training deputy said he hopes Kato is ready for police work by her first birthday, but he's willing to give her all the training she needs. Bertuca said his job is about protecting people, and patrol dogs like Stitch – and one day Kato – serve those people, too.
DuPage County Sheriff's deputies routinely patrol solo, but a few get to have a partner by their side every day.
"We're lucky because we have a dog in the car," Bertuca said.
(My Suburban Life - Aug 14 2013)
This is a fine tribute to a fine dog, as it should be.
ReplyDelete