Augusta County K9 officer retiring early after outpouring of community support

AUGUSTA COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) - A crime-fighting dog is em-bark-ing on an early retirement.

The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office is allowing K9 Officer Rico to spend the rest of his life with the person he knows best.

When Rico’s former handler left the sheriff’s office, the original plan was to transfer the K9 to a new handler, but the Augusta County community raised more than $19,000 to cover the costs of training a new K9 and for Rico to retire.

The Virginia Police K9 Association will pay for all of Rico’s food, medical expenses, and end-of-life cots.

“Most every handler you talked to adopts their dogs, they just don’t let them go for adoption. So they keep their dogs and, and they are telling me that they’re responsible for the food and their medical expenses and things like that. So I thought there’s gotta be a way that we can help you out,” Virginia Police K9 Association President Mike Kerr said.

The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office will officially retire Rico to his former handler on Friday, August 18.

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