Tales of a Four-Legged Cop

Last year, in our “Dynamic Duos” story, we introduced you to Brett Titus of Metro SWAT/K-9 Unit and his partner, Vis, a four-and-a-half-year-old Belgian Malinois. But that wasn’t the whole story.

After joining Denver’s K-9 unit in the 1990s, Titus founded the Colorado Police Canine Association and today travels regularly to K-9 units all over the country to help train and improve their programs. His own biggest lessons, though, came from his very first K-9 partner, Oscar, a monstrous but lovable 90-pound Belgian Malinois who remains somewhat of a legend within Denver’s K-9 unit. By the end of his career, Oscar had searched 226 buildings and recorded 108 apprehensions.

In his new book, The Oscar Dog (available on Amazon at the end of the month), Titus pays homage to his first partner, detailing his adventures both on the job and off, whether that’s tracking down a suspect hidden two stories up or stealing the occasional pizza from Titus. Easily digestible in a single sitting, The Oscar Dog nimbly moves from high-octane adventure, like when Oscar saves his partner from potentially being shot by an armed suspect, to wry retellings of Oscar’s penchant for, uh, gardening (read: ripping out small trees for games of fetch). Clear, humorous, and absent of pretension, the short read doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a joyful recounting of Titus and Oscar’s partnership, both professional and personal—one any dog lover, hell, any animal lover, will appreciate.

Spoiler alert: Don’t even think about starting the final chapter without Kleenex at the ready.

Follow senior editor Kasey Cordell on Twitter @KaseyCordell.