Elgin K-9 retires after more than a decade of service

A longtime Elgin police dog retired Tuesday - on his 13th birthday - after a ceremony attended by other area police dogs that even featured a dog cake.

Gage is a Deutsch-Drahthaar, or a German wirehaired pointer, whose handler is Officer Marshall Kite. The two have been paired up for 11½ years, during which time Gage was a hardworking member of the police department by day and a family dog to Kite's wife and two children by night.

Gage is a detection dog, meaning he's trained to find things and people. Police dogs can also be trained for apprehension and protection.

Among his biggest successes was helping find a suicidal man, just in time, a few years ago, Kite said.

"He (the man) was on a tree with a rope around his neck," Kite said. "We got there and got him the help that he needed."

Gage also helped recover machine guns and hand grenades - after detecting the scent of narcotics, which allowed authorities to obtain a search warrant - from an Elgin storage unit in August.

Gage is retiring to become a full-time pet because he started suffering from arthritis, Kite said. Police dogs typically serve for seven or eight years, he added.

Kite will be paired with another police dog, a female German shepherd, next month.

Elgin's other police dogs are: Willson, a chocolate Lab partnered with Officer Chris Jones; Bauer, a German shepherd paired with Officer Justin Brown; and Colt, a German shepherd whose handler is Officer Chad Schuttrow.