PITTSBURGH — Cappy, the only bloodhound in the Pittsburgh police K-9 unit, has died at age 7.
K-9 Cappy died after being diagnosed with malignant melanoma which spread to his lungs.
“The bloodhound team which was K-9 Cappy along with his handler Officer Kevin Merkel did a lot of work, but not all was chasing bad guys,” Pittsburgh police said in a Facebook post.
Police said Cappy was part of the Scentsational K-9 program and Project Lifesaver.
As part of the Scentsational K-9 program, people can bring at-risk family members to events and capture their skin cells to preserve their scent. The scent can be kept up to seven years in the refrigerator.
If these people ever went missing, Cappy was in charge of helping to find them using their scent.
Meet and greet events were held for Cappy so that missing at-risk people wouldn’t be afraid of him if he came to help them.
“K-9 Cappy was an integrable part of our K-9 unit and will be sorely missed,” the Facebook post said.
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