Fort Collins police dog credited with saving his handler's life retires

Sady Swanson, Fort Collins Coloradoan
·6 min read
3
Fort Collins Police Sgt. Ryan Barash walks with his K-9 partner, Inox, on Tuesday. Inox, who retired this month, survived a stabbing and is credited with saving Barash’s life twice in their eight years working together.
Fort Collins Police Sgt. Ryan Barash walks with his K-9 partner, Inox, on Tuesday. Inox, who retired this month, survived a stabbing and is credited with saving Barash’s life twice in their eight years working together.

A Fort Collins police K-9 that survived being stabbed and is credited with saving his handler's life twice in his almost eight years with the department is ready to enjoy retirement.

Inox, a nearly 9-year-old German shepherd trained in suspect apprehension and drug detection, has been working with Fort Collins police since March 2016. In that time police say Inox has:

  • Saved the life of his handler — Sgt. Ryan Barash — twice

  • Survived a stabbing

  • Helped seize more than 100 pounds of various types of illegal drugs

  • Helped arrest more than 600 people

  • Been responsible for more than 60 surrender apprehensions

  • Been deployed more than 1,000 times

“It’s truly amazing what these dogs are capable of and the amazing tool that they are to the agency, not only for the drug seizures and the apprehensions, but more than anything it’s the safety of our citizens and the safety of our officers,” Barash said.

The department's K-9 unit has a 97% surrender rate when bringing out a dog to a resisting suspect, Barash said. This isn't deploying a dog to bite or apprehend a suspect — just taking the dog out of the car to bark a few times encourages suspects to surrender almost every time, Barash said.

"That’s exactly what we want," he said "We don’t want to injure anybody, we don’t want to hurt them, but at the same time this is a great tool to get them to surrender or to eventually apprehend them safely."

In his lengthy career with Fort Collins police, Inox has only had 10 apprehensions — meaning he actually went after and bit a suspect — which is tied for the most bites for any K-9 at the agency, Barash said.

Fort Collins Police K-9 Inox sits for a picture on Tuesday. Inox, who retired this month, survived a stabbing and is credited with saving his handler's life twice in their eight years working together.
Fort Collins Police K-9 Inox sits for a picture on Tuesday. Inox, who retired this month, survived a stabbing and is credited with saving his handler's life twice in their eight years working together.

Barash said Inox has saved his life twice while they worked together. The first was in July 2021, when officers were trying to contact a man with a felony warrant for his arrest. Barash said the man tried to run, and a less-than-lethal baton round that was fired at him wasn't enough to stop the suspect, so he decided to send out Inox.

Officers knew from prior contacts with this man that he had guns, and it turned out the man had a loaded gun in the door panel of his car.

“I sent Inox right before the guy got to the car and Inox latched on to his thigh,” Barash said. “The guy told us in an interview afterwards that if he had gotten to the door … he had a gun right in the door panel and he said that he was going to turn and shoot and kill the first police officer he saw, and that would have been me.

“I was closest, I was right around the corner, he would’ve turned and just shot me.”

Barash said Inox also saved his life in November 2021 in the incident where Inox survived being stabbed by a suspect.

Police were responding to reports of a man armed with knives threatening people in Old Town. Officers used a less-lethal SAGE launcher, which deploys 40 mm hard foam batons, on the man but he fled and barricaded himself on the emergency escape staircase at the Armstrong Hotel. After several hours, the man attempted to run again, and Barash decided to send Inox after him.

“Inox apprehended him, and the guy started stabbing Inox, so I ran up and was able to take the guy into custody,” Barash said. “But he still fought the entire time all the way through, and Inox popped out from underneath the scrum and latched on to the guy, and that was the only thing that got him to stop — even after (Inox was) stabbed.”

Inox was wearing a protective vest — donated by Fort Collins residents Cathy and Gary Wimmis — and that vest is credited with saving his life.

Barash said it's hard to send a dog an officer is attached to into dangerous situations — and they never intentionally send their dogs into situations where they are set up to fail — but deploying dogs to apprehend dangerous suspects is, in part, what these dogs are trained for.

Fort Collins Police Sgt. Ryan Barash and his K-9 partner, Inox, stand for a picture on Tuesday. Inox, who retired this month, survived a stabbing and is credited with saving Barash’s life twice in their eight years working together.
Fort Collins Police Sgt. Ryan Barash and his K-9 partner, Inox, stand for a picture on Tuesday. Inox, who retired this month, survived a stabbing and is credited with saving Barash’s life twice in their eight years working together.

“We know as police officers we’re going to run towards the gunfire and possibly not come home that night, and our dogs are very similar,” Barash said. “... You have to, to an extent, remove yourself. He is my best friend, he is my buddy and he was my partner for almost eight years. … But there’s still that part of it that I know that one day I might have to send him into a building or send him somewhere that he could be killed instead of me.

“He saved my life, which allows me to go home to my family, which is huge, and that’s exactly what we have them for and what these dogs are capable of."

Inox retired in early August — a few months shy of his ninth birthday — in part due to his age and arthritis throughout his body, and also in part because Barash was recently promoted to sergeant. After a recent restructuring of the department's K-9 unit, sergeants no longer get K-9 partners.

"More than anything, I wanted him to be able to enjoy retirement and not just be in pain," Barash said.

Inox is "quite the character at home" and seems to be enjoying his retirement so far, Barash said. He wasn’t home for Inox’s first week off — he was off camping with his sons — but said his wife sent him photos of Inox sprawled out on Barash’s side of the bed and rolling on the clean laundry.

Inox gets along well with Barash's 12-year-old husky, but he said they are still getting Inox and Barash's younger hunting dog used to each other. Inox may be older and in pain, but he still has plenty of energy, Barash said. He and his wife take Inox for plenty of walks, play a lot of fetch and let him run through the sprinklers to help burn off the energy he used to burn while at work.

Going to work without Inox has been an adjustment, Barash said. Just having Inox with him on traffic stops or on patrol made him feel safer doing his job, knowing Inox's presence was enough to get possibly uncooperative people to comply. As a patrol sergeant now, Barash said he will be doing a little more administrative work but still plans to be on the streets with the officers he supervises as much as possible — though he'll now be without his K-9 partner.

"My car is a lot quieter," Barash said.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins police dog credited with saving his handler's life retires