In his final moments, Mokey laid his arthritic bones on the asphalt outside a Roswell animal hospital.
Human and canine friends from various metro police agencies — Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia Tech, Sandy Springs, MARTA and Henry County among them — gathered around. They took turns patting his head or just standing in support. Now-retired Fulton County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kirk Markham straddled his longtime partner and friend, speaking quietly while rubbing the celebrated K9 officer’s sides.
“See,” Markham said. “All these people came out to see you. See how special you are?”
Bruno, Mokey’s canine “brother,” whimpered.
Dogs know.
Mokey was put to rest Thursday morning, carried into the clinic in Markham’s arms while fellow law enforcement officers stood at attention. The 12-year-old Labrador retriever had suffered from debilitating arthritis for nearly a year, and it was time.
He’d had a good life, and a good career.
To hear Markham tell it, Mokey was originally pegged as a seeing eye dog but flunked out because he was too energetic — “a man of action.” Markham and Mokey were paired in 2004, and Mokey became the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office’s very first explosives K9. He was extensively trained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and worked, among other places, the Fulton County courthouse, the Fulton County jail and four different Super Bowls.
He also brought change to the Atlanta Police Department.
Despite APD having its own K9s, Mokey and Markham’s services were called on regularly. Markham said a casual suggestion led the department to use Mokey — and then other K9s — to help find shell casings and guns at crime scenes.
Mokey also found key shell casings following the shooting deaths of Chattahoochee Hills police Lt. Mike Vogt and Georgia State Trooper Chadwick McCoy, both who were killed in separate actions in the line of duty in 2010.
“I really can’t express how emotional this is for us to lose Mokey,” Maj. Paul Guerrucci, the commander of APD’s homicide unit, said Thursday.
Mokey and Markham both retired in 2011, and Mokey’s arthritis surfaced about a year ago, Markham said. It became crippling in January.
In the months since then, Markham spent his nights on the couch or on the floor. Mokey couldn’t make it upstairs to the bedroom anymore, and he needed someone to carry him outside to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
“I just want to send him out the right way, the proper way,” Markham said Thursday, breaking down. “It’s what he deserves after all the work he’s done for this community.”
About the Author
