A changing of the guard will take place Aug. 1 at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department as Lt. Jim Lansing’s longtime K-9, Sari, will retire on the 10th anniversary of her first day wearing a police badge.

But for those of us who have spent the past decade following Sari — watching her display exceptional tracking and drug detection skills, petting her at schools and fairs, and knowing she was out there, ready to jump at a moment’s notice and do whatever it takes to find and protect us — Sari won’t disappear from our narrative of life in Monroe County.

She will still be a presence for MCSD community relations efforts, but the rest of her life will take on a slower pace.

“Not only is she a working dog, she’s a family member,” Monroe County Sheriff Neal Rohlfing said.

And as a member of the Lansing family, Sari will enjoy her teens with a lighter workload and lots of love, off the county’s payroll.

“I can’t go anywhere in the county, off-duty or on-duty, without everyone coming up to me asking, ‘Where’s your dog? Where’s Sari?’” Lansing said. “I’ve been on calls, in people’s homes, and seen her picture up on the refrigerator from an appearance we made at a school or with scouts.

“But she’s getting some arthritis on her spine and now she’s gotten to where she doesn’t want to eat her food,” Lansing said of his almost 13-year-old partner.

Monroe County won’t be without a police dog, though. Deputies Justin Mendenhall and Ed Ahne are both new K-9 officers, and with their dogs Reggie and Kondor, respectively, Rohlfing hopes to be able to keep one dog on duty at all times.

Throughout Sari’s career, the awards and accolades she has earned are too numerous to list. But Lansing has a short list of the accomplishments he’s most proud of.

“Her forte really was tracking,” he said. “This skill can be used for evidence detection and for tracking people, two things she has done a lot of.”

She was able to assist in the recovery of a gun stolen during a home invasion in Red Bud after the weapon was discarded in a lake. And she helped law enforcement discover the tragedy that had befallen Kathy and Kadin Baxmeyer and Austin Baum before officers knew for sure that they were missing, following a scent from a glove to a hole in the ice in a nearby lake.

Among her largest drug seizures was 65 pounds of marijuana she detected in a vehicle on I-255. In fact, of the seven substances she is trained to detect — cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, oxycontin, methamphetamine and cannabis — she has a documented detection of each one.

But the advantages of having a dog like Sari go beyond her ability to find people and things. She also provides protection for Lansing and other law enforcement.

“A dog can equal 12 people,” said Lansing, explaining why dogs are so effective at persuading people to comply with police orders. “(Suspects) know we’re not going to shoot them or taze them, but they don’t know what a dog’s going to do.”

Sari has helped the county jailers search for contraband and helped deputies and police officers break up large-scale fights, as well as offering handler protection when subjects get a little out of hand.

And even though her days on the job are nearly finished, Sari will continue to train with Lansing, easing the transition from working dog into retired beloved K-9. And even as he looks forward to his new role as patrol commander and supervisor of the K-9 program at MCSD, Lansing wouldn’t have traded his time with Sari for anything.

“It’s hard to be both a lieutenant and a K-9 officer. Because when we’re on a scene, all my attention is on her,” he said.

Now, Lansing will focus on commanding and guiding the new K-9 officers, and he is excited about the future of the county’s K-9 program with the young talent now on the streets.

But he will never forget the impact Sari had on his career with the sheriff’s department.

“I’d pass up stripes, I’d pass up lieutenant bars, just to be a K-9 officer,” Lansing said. “It’s the most important job I’ve ever had.”