Stratford K9 retires after 9 years

STRATFORD, Conn. (WTNH) -- A veteran cop with a lot of arrests under his belt retired today and got some scratches behind the ears to say thank you.

For the past 9 years, a 49 year run in human years, Roscoe the German Shepard has been the key player in Stratford's police K9 unit.

On Thursday at 13 he officially retired. He leaves some big shoes to fill. Make that big tracks to fill.

"During our career we've had 65 successful tracks which is really a lot. That's one of the harder things to do is to track down missing persons or suspects," said Officer Robert Joy, Roscoe's handler.

Roscoe is being replaced by Bravo who is fresh out of the same 450 hours of rigorous training Roscoe went through.

"A K9 unit is one of the best assets an agency can have," said Bill Scriber, master police dog trainer. "We use the dogs for a wide variety of things, everything from finding lost children, to suspects that are running from us, searching for drugs."

Police dogs live with their handlers and they're on call 24/7.

Now that Roscoe is coming into retirement he will remain with his handler and pal Officer Joy. He says they have Roscoe's retirement all planned out.

"Sleep, lay around the house, whatever," said

9 years is a very long run for a police dog. Roscoe's track record is one of the longest in state history.