‘Love you ... see you on the other side’: Kansas officer tells his longtime K-9 partner
Detective Tony Hawpe, a longtime Newton police K-9 officer and lifelong dog lover, found some peace in the passing of his longtime partner who was recently euthanized amid a medical emergency.
Bella, a 9-year-old Belgian Malinois who retired in January, was put to sleep June 27 after having a violent seizure. Hawpe, in a Facebook post on a page called Cpl. Hawpe and K-9 Bella, shared on Thursday about rushing her to Newton Animal Hospital and the doctor and staff’s efforts to save her.
Based on the symptoms and tests, Dr. Shane Tonn thought Bella had a tumor on her brain that had been slowly growing. On that day, it had grown big enough to cut off vessels in her brain.
She had become aggressive in the past year, but Hawpe now attributes it to the tumor. The unknown aggression came out at him, his wife and their elderly Yorkshire terrier, Baby Girl.
“I had hoped her retirement was going to be lazy days and hamburgers (she did get plenty of both), but it has been a struggle the entire time,” he wrote.
He said some days Bella would be a “goofy gal, jumping around, playing and asking for pets.”
“But, soon after I would pet her, she would turn on me and literally try to bite me. Then she would walk around with her tail between her legs and refuse to obey commands. This dog, she was my partner, my ride or die best friend, someone who had been with me through some of the toughest parts of my career / life. Our relationship was damaged. I was sad, and to be honest, I was angry sometimes.”
He added: “Because I loved her, I just accepted that we would just continue on, and if she turned on me and I got bit, I would deal with it and still give her the best life I could.”
Bella was sedated with the hopes that she could be medically awakened, and the seizure would pass. Staff had been working on her for four hours at that point, but she went right back into a seizure.
“I could tell we were not going to win,” Hawpe wrote. “I began to process the situation as a whole. K-9 Bella was not going to recover, she had been feverishly worked on for four hours without improvement, she was likely going have a deeply impacted future if she did ever stop seizing and she was clearly suffering. I looked back on her short life of 9 years and I knew she lived a good life. Through salty eyes, I looked at Dr. Tonn and told him I saw what needed to be done. “
Hawpe, in a Facebook message, recalled his last words to Bella:
“I love you. I’ll see you on the other side.”
He now knows the turn in her personality was from the tumor.
“Conversely, now knowing she had a medical issue all this time, I wish I would have not been angry with her at times,” he said in the Facebook post. “I treated her with love regardless, but I so strongly wished our relationship was like it used to be and I could not understand why she was so angry. I hope she understands that I did not know. I’ll ask her when I see her again.”
Hawpe remembers Bella for how she had been and how she was the majority of the time since their partnership started in December 2015:
“She was superbly social and the first affectionate police dog I have ever had,” he said in a message.
The social skills allowed them to frequent schools. But she was also a “master tracker and could be taught to do anything.” She was a hard worker, he said.
(When this reporter interviewed him in 2017, Bella also wouldn’t stand and pose for a photo, but, instead, kept jumping up to kiss Hawpe.)
Hawpe, in the Facebook post, said days after euthanizing Bella, he got a letter in the mail from the animal hospital. A check was inside for the full amount of Bella’s bill. An anonymous donor had paid the bill.
“I can’t lie, I got a little lump in my throat,” he wrote. “I was, and I am still, completely humbled. I am proud that she impacted someone’s life so much that they felt compelled to impact ours. I do not know who you are, but I know what you did. I hope you are here to see this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”
In 2018, Hawpe had to put down his former longtime K-9 partner, Carla. She retired after 12 years and was 16 years old. She had painful arthritis throughout her body, he said. A video Hawpe posted showed her get out of the police car, her last ride, before she walked stiff-legged into the Newton Animal Hospital. Officers lined up along the sidewalk to salute her goodbye.
