Yaro is a 13-year-old retired K9 from the Galt Police Department in California who made the news in February of 2021 for a special memento in honor of his later partner, Officer Kevin Tonn.

Officer Tonn died back in January of 2013 after being shot on duty while responding to a burglary. The U.S. Army veteran and 3-and-a-half-year member of the force was just 35 years old.

Enjoying retirement

The life expectancy for a German Shepherd is around 10-12 years, but Yaro will be 14 years old on March 14, 2021! Obviously, his days of sniffing out crime and chasing bad guys are over. But luckily, he gets to enjoy playing and being a normal canine.

“Now he just loves to play basketball and squeaky ball and we just basically let him do whatever he wants because he’s the boss he has more than earned it,” his owner told Good Morning Sacramento.

But life has a way of slowing us all down as we age and Yaro doesn’t get around as well as he used to. So now he gets a little help from his K9 cart.

And he’s getting along just fine!

A hand-me-down comes in handy

K9s are considered equipment in police department budgets, so it’s up to the kindness of their former partners or rescue organizations to care for them in retirement. And that also means that it can be tough to cover their medical bills – especially when they’re senior dogs – and their partner is no longer around.

“He has no idea how old he is…he has no idea that he needs that wheelchair because he’s just fine playing with his basketball. It’s really bought him a lot more active time,” said Julie Baldwin of the Foothills K9 Association.

Believe it or not, Yaro didn’t need any assistance until recently.

“He was able to take walks before without it and he was walking all by himself up until mid-December and then he he got so that he would tip over so I had to hold on to the back end and we couldn’t go very far because you can imagine I’m trying not to step on him and he’s going one way and I’m going the other,” recalled Baldwin.

That’s when she realized she already had the perfect solution.

“So we had this wheelchair from K9 scout that I had from 2011 to 2016 and he was in it for about three years at the end and so we just repainted it and refurbished it got some new rubber for it and off he went.”

A sweet tribute

What put Yaro back in the news recently was not just his longevity, but the new license plate that got added to the back of his wheels to make them “street legal.”

Yaro and Officer Tonn were the department’s K9 Unit 2, which is now emblazoned on his licence plate as a reminder of his service days with his old friend.

We’re so happy to see that Yaro has a great life and good care despite everything he’s been through.

We wish him a happy 14th birthday!

Be sure to scroll down below to see how Yaro is doing today.

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Source: YouTube – Good Morning Sacramento, Officer Down Memorial Page, Facebook – Foothills K9 Association