Hero K9 Police Dog Kojak’s Final Salute

A hero K9 dog, Kojak – who completed a whopping 665 search-and-rescue operations during his career – was sadly put down Sunday morning in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, after his outstanding career was cut short due to a brain tumour, detected in May this year.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) paid tribute to Kojak in a post on Facebook, sourced from an article by Gareth Wilson in the Herald.

After an x-ray revealed the 3cm tumour, Kojak was forced into early retirement… and spent his last months being cared for by K9 unit handler Warrant Officer Etienne Gerber, who had worked with Kojak for eight years.

During his career Kojak had rescued five people and recovered 275 bodies. His operations included dangling 30m beneath a helicopter whilst being airlifted through the Eastern Cape’s most dangerous mountain ranges to find missing hikers, locating plane crashes in hard-to-reach sites, and climbing into gorges to find missing people who had drowned in rivers or dams.

He was even called on to work outside South Africa – with one of the team’s most daring rescues being a 2km descent into a mine shaft south of Lake Victoria, in Tanzania in 2013.

One of Kojak’s more famous searches was that for missing school teacher Jayde Panayiotou, whose husband, Christopher, is currently standing trial for her murder.

Police spokeswoman Colonel Priscilla Naidu told the Herald that Gerber had been awoken at around 2am by a commotion, and seeing Kojak lying half inside his kennel he stayed with him until his faithful dog lost consciousness and was rushed to Walmer Vet. “There was unfortunately nothing that could be done to save him and he was put to sleep,” she said.

Speaking to the Herald, Gerber said he and his family are devastated by the shepherd’s death – “It is like losing a child. There are just no words that one can say. We are all shattered and have lost a member of our family.”

#ThankYouKojak #RIP