FORKS — Hero, the German shepherd whose tracking skills helped send a man to prison for poaching old-growth cedar in Olympic National Forest, has died, his handler said.
U.S. Forest Service Officer Kristine Fairbanks had the former canine officer put down on Monday after the dog was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, stomach and liver.
Hero, who was 10, had lived with Fairbanks and her family in Forks since 1998, when he first went into service.
“We were really close,” Fairbanks said of the dog Saturday.
Before retiring from patrol work in 2003 because of arthritis, Hero was often Fairbanks’ only companion as the pair patrolled the entire west side of Olympic National Forest.
“I don’t know how you would measure the number of times he’s protected me,” Fairbanks said.
“People have a lot more respect for a dog than they do for an officer.”
The dog would track suspects and find any evidence with human scent on it, skills that in 2002 led Fairbanks to a backpack stashed near a newly cut cedar tree in the Quinault ranger district.
“In that particular instance, we didn’t even know we had a cedar theft at that site,” Fairbanks said of the day Hero located the stump.
