MARYSVILLE – Police officer Stacey Dreyer is losing his partner, but gaining a pet for his family.

Hawkeye, a 9-year-old German Shepard, is retiring.

Hawkeye joined the Marysville Police Department late 2009 and became certified as a tracking police K-9 in January 2010.

During his eight years of service, Hawkeye was deployed over 130 times and had 78 successful tracks. Hawkeye completed over 3,500 hours of continuous training, participated in countless demonstrations and provided positive education and engagement with multitudes of residents.

Always a favorite at National Night Out and school-related events, Hawkeye will be deeply missed, Cmdr. Mark Thomas said Wednesday. Hawkeye’s retirement also means that Dreyer begins a new phase of his career in the department’s Training Division.

Dreyer was a K-9 handler and trainer for 17 years and is largely responsible for the program, Thomas said. His first K-9, Radar, was one of the first two K-9 teams in the department. Between the two K-9’s Dreyer had over 560 deployments and over 7,600 hours in training. He was instrumental in the training and development of new K-9s Copper and Steele.