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Hancock County K9 Officer Loco was stabbed on Tuesday while pursuing a suspect through the woods. The suspect is now being charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer among other charges. Assaulting a K9 officer carries the same penalty as assaulting a human police officer.

“Pretty much if I’m at work he is with me every day.” K9 Officer Loco and Deputy Colin Freeman are pretty much inseparable. “Part of the family.”

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When Loco went missing for three and a half hours while they were pursuing a suspect, Deputy Freeman knew something was wrong. “It was very emotional. You get attached to these dogs. You work with them every single day and he comes up missing, the first thing you do is think of the worst that could happen. I mean it was nonstop for three and a half hours I was in the woods looking.”

When Loco was finally found, officers noticed there was a stab wound in his stomach and immediately took him to the vet where he received around 125 stitches. “It was rather large, about the size of the quarter, a puncture wound on his underside. The vet told us that right off the bat it looks like he was punctured with a curved stick and she pulled a lot of tree debris out of the wound.”

Loco was able to leave the vet that night and is on the road to recovery now. “We got home, as soon as the medicine wore off, he pretty much was almost like his old self. He wanted to be right on top of me, right on my wife, I mean, he just wanted to lay right there. Every time he wanted to be near me his cone hit me in the face.”

Loco could be back to work in as little as a few weeks.