Canine wildlife officer was hero to travellers
Beloved border collie helped chase off birds, animals that posed a danger to airplanes
On the last day of his nine-year life, Piper the border collie chased a snowy owl from the runway at the airport in Traverse City, Mich. It was the 8,367th bird he had scared off in a three-year career as the airport’s K-9 wildlife control officer — which turned him into one of the nation’s most famous dogs.
Piper began his duties in late 2014 as the sidekick to his owner, airport operations manager Brian Edwards. The dog went viral a little more than a year later, when images of him — looking Top Gun chic in protective goggles — hit the social site Reddit. On Wednesday, he lost a yearlong battle with prostate cancer, an illness Edwards did not reveal publicly until Piper’s death.
Edwards said he kept his pet’s health troubles to himself partially out of a desire for privacy after a “crazy year,” but also because the pooch — who used his herding skills to clear the airfield of mammals such as foxes and groundhogs, too — kept going until the end. The cancer was diagnosed in January 2016, but Edwards said Piper didn’t show symptoms until December. Even so, the duo worked a regular 10-hour shift on Christmas.
“I think we were lucky to get a year out of him,” Edwards said.
“It’s cancer. It’s life. You can’t predict anything.”
Like many internet-famous animals, Piper had slick social-media accounts and a website, which Edwards said he initially established because he figured some other dog and aviation enthusiasts might appreciate them. As his tumour swelled in recent weeks, Piper began having trouble urinating, Edwards said.
“Things were fine until New Year’s Eve, and then the tumour had grown too large and he just couldn’t go anymore,” Edwards said, choking up.
On Tuesday, his veterinarian drained the dog’s bladder with a catheter and said it might make him comfortable for a few days. It didn’t last, though, and Edwards said he and the dog left their shift on Wednesday morning to have it drained again. They returned to the airport that afternoon so that Piper could “say goodbye to all his fellow co-workers.”
Piper died in his arms that night. He draped a U.S. flag — flown that day at the Coast Guard air station at the airport — over the dog’s body, shared a photo on Instagram and asked for “patience as I take time to tend to my shattered heart.”
In addition to all those chased birds, Piper had patrolled 3,069 kilometres and worked 6,206 hours at the airport, according to his website — which, as of Friday, still made no mention of his death.
In the upper right-hand corner was this status: “Airport K-9 Piper is offduty.”