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NYPD's Kojak Retires

NEW YORK CITY – Even a police dog named Kojak has to pack it in sometime.

After nearly a decade of catching criminals, one of the NYPD’s most reliable bloodhounds has retired.

“There were times when we’d be following him and think he was way off-scent, only to find the perp exactly where he was pointing,” said Kojak’s human handler, Police Officer Jonathan Figueroa, 38, of the NYPD’s K-9 unit.

Kojak is nearly 10 – that’s 70 in people years – but his nose was actually at its peak when he finished his last tour on April 26 because the breed’s sniffing ability improves with age.

Unfortunately for Kojak – and the New Yorkers he’s served – back surgery and weakened hind legs, another breed tendency, has meant the 120-pound hound’s days of tracking are over.

“His nose is at its prime,” Figueroa said. “Too bad he couldn’t pass his training and experience on.”

Bloodhounds are bred for hunting, so harnessing their tracking skill for police work starts when the animals are 10 weeks old.

“Every person has a unique scent, just like fingerprints,” Figueroa said.

Bloodhounds pick up that scent from sloughed-off skin cells. The folds in their face help trap the aromas.

The beauty of bloodhounds is that they can follow a smell into a crowd and then pick the subject out from among the throng.

So after smelling a car seat, Kojak was able to track a carjacker for 3 miles.

He was also renowned for a case in which he tailed the suspect in an attempted murder case under elevated tracks in the Bronx and right up to the criminal’s front door.

Kojak’s replacement, a spunky 10-month-old female named Bella, has finished her training, gotten her badge number – K-9 49 – and is already on the job.

She even tried to boss around the older dog when he was briefly brought out of retirement for a photo shoot.

“He couldn’t wait to jump into the van to come to work,” said Figueroa, who is in the process of adopting the pooch, a tradition for dogs and their handlers.

“When we had to come to work every day, he sometimes didn’t want to,” Figueroa said.

“Now that he’s retired, he realizes he misses it – just like humans.”

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