By: Mike Koury | Woodward Talk | Published August 5, 2025
BERKLEY — Two longtime members of the Berkley Public Safety Department will be stepping away from the department.
The department announced on July 28 that K-9 Bear will be retiring and his handler, officer Brian Anderson, will be leaving to work in another city.
Anderson has been with Berkley since 2014 and became Bear’s handler in 2020. While becoming a handler was stressful at times, he said it was the most rewarding thing he’s done in his career.
“Just to see how much work that all these dogs get put into, and when it all comes together and works on the road, it’s kind of hard to describe the feeling,” he said. “It’s just really rewarding.”
Anderson decided to move on from the Public Safety Department, as he didn’t have much interest in firefighting anymore, and his new job worked better for his family life.
Coming along with Anderson will be Bear, who will live out his retirement with his family.
“Bear will live out his life with Brian’s family, where he’s lived since we got him,” Public Safety Director Matt Koehn said. “He’ll live, hopefully, a long and enjoyable retirement with Brian and his family.
“Our hope is to eventually select another handler and get another canine,” he continued. “It’s been a very successful program. Bear is known throughout the area for being a great both tracking and drug dog and an absolutely fabulous tool and also a very good community relations tool. People just love dogs, and it’s kind of nice — I can be sitting in my office and all of a sudden, Bear comes in and says hi. So, it’s nice for us too. He is a tool, but he’s also part of the family.”
Anderson said he might have not made the decision to leave if he wasn’t able to keep Bear.
“There’s some departments that take the dogs away from the handlers when they leave. And once the dogs have the bond with the handler, you can’t retrain it with another person. It’s just never going to be the same,” he said. “I loved the (Berkley Public Safety) Department. It’s kind of a bittersweet decision that I made to leave. But the department’s a great department.”
When the department began its K-9 program, Koehn said, it had a lot of interest in the position from its officers before selecting Anderson. Once the department selects which officer will be the next handler, Berkley will get a dog best suited for said handler.
“There was a lot of interest last time when we selected Brian, and there’s a lot of interest now,” he said.
That being said, the department will be going without a K-9 unit until the department becomes fully staffed.
According to Koehn, there are two openings at the moment, but there are officers both in the field training program and the police and fire academies. None will count toward staffing until they complete both academies and are off the four-month field training program.
“We’re like most departments, both police and fire. We’re having a hard time becoming fully staffed. So, the first thing we have to do is become closer to being fully staffed. … My hope would be within a year at the most, we’ll be able to do that,” he said.
Whenever the department is able to bring in its next K-9, Anderson said the next officer should know a lot of hard work will be ahead of them.
“It’s not just a one-time-a-day thing,” he said. “You’re constantly training with the dog, and it’s a complete lifestyle change. And you get what you put into it.”