FILLING SOME BIG PAW PRINTS

I was saddened when I heard Rex was dead. I've spent a lot of time around
cops and Rex was a real pro.

He was a genuine hero, too. I first met Rex eight years ago when he crashed
headfirst through a closed car window to help capture a Harnett County
shooter who had fellow deputies pinned down by gunfire.

Not a bad day's work for a four-legged, tail-wagging, sweetheart of a dog.

But even the best dogs don't live forever, even if they are heroic police
dogs who receive national recognition for their work, and so it was with Rex.

"Rex got old," said his partner, Brian Lischin, now with the Holly Springs
Police Department. "He'd developed a tumor and had to retire in 1997." Rex
passed away earlier this year.

So what do you do when your partner, willingly or not, hangs up his badge,
especially a partner as adept as Rex at sniffing out drugs, search and
rescue, protecting his handler, tracking bad guys, apprehending them and
even searching buildings?

Meet Apache, Lischin's new partner, who is rapidly becoming famous in Wake
County. Lischin and Apache work one day a week on patrol in Holly Springs
and the rest of the time with a countywide interagency drug and vice task
force.

Rex, like Apache a Belgian Malinois, spent his retirement years as the
Lischin family pet. Meanwhile, Lischin was learning to work with Apache.
"Making the transition to Apache was much more stressful than I thought,"
he said. "I would expect him to do things like Rex did, but he didn't. I
had to learn to let him be himself."

Rex, after his storied career, was not all that pleased with his retirement
or with Apache, who also lived at the Lischin house.

"When Rex would watch us leave for work, he'd act so depressed," Lischin
said. "And we'd come home, he'd turn the other way and not look at us. Rex
and Apache got along all right as long as I was there, but there was some
competition if I left them alone."

As you might expect, Lischin is sold on the concept of canine cops, not
only for their obvious policing skills but also for their public relations
value.

"Police departments projecting a positive image to the public cannot be
over-emphasized," he said. "And nothing does that better than a dog.

"Apache, like Rex, just loves everybody. If you're afraid of dogs, I'll put
him down and he'll let you approach at your own comfort level. Then he'll
let 40 kids pile on him and he loves that, too. But if necessary, he can go
from being almost a pet to a police officer who takes his work very seriously."

Just this past week, Apache made another good bust.

"A guy had been shooting at some people but he ran when we got there,"
Lischin said. "He threw the gun away, but Apache went right to it and then
tracked the guy straight to his house, where we arrested him. People tend
not to cause much trouble when there's a dog on them."

And he works cheap.

"His payoff is finding the subject alive," Lischin said. "He loves that.
That's why the dogs searching the World Trade Center had it so tough. There
was no one alive left to find."