MOSES LAKE — Though it was a largely uneventful first week on the streets of Moses Lake for Officer Nick Stewart and his partner, a 15-month-old Belgian Malinois named K-9 Jester, it did start on an interesting note.

On what was supposed to be their first day of patrol, the pair were called out to aid in the hunt for a murder suspect on the run in Kittitas County. After five weeks of daily hard surface tracking exercises, however, the professional puppy was being tasked with finding a 34-year-old, 5-foot 7-inch man hiding somewhere in the mountains.

Luckily, Jester had come already well-versed in tracking through vegetation, and both he and Stewart joined the chase. It was a hard day of tracking, climbing 2,000 feet of elevation over three and a half miles, and though the pair didn’t track down the suspect — as of Thursday, the suspect was still missing — it was certainly an interesting first day.

It was Stewart’s first time back on the streets — or in the mountains — with a four-legged partner since K-9 Chief, a 4-year-old German shepherd, was shot in the eye during a Feb. 28 chase of a burglary suspect. The man who fired that shot, 22-year-old Jose Rivera, was killed by Stewart as he returned fire.

The resulting use-of-force investigation kept Stewart from being with Chief that first night as the dog struggled for his life. For days that felt like weeks, it wasn’t clear that Chief was going to survive his injuries.

Stewart recalled that first night after the initial use-of-force interviews driving to Pullman, where Chief had been taken for critical medical care, and a couple of days after, waiting for the call to come saying that Chief had lost his life.

That call never came. Five days after being airlifted by Life Flight to Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital for lifesaving operations, his eye surgically removed and bands of hair shaved from his legs, Chief was escorted home by dozens of police vehicles from a half dozen agencies.

It quickly became apparent that Chief wasn’t going to be able to return to the force, and the K-9 was retired — though Stewart expects him to start making public appearances again once social distancing guidelines are eased up. For those first few days, Chief got excited when Stewart started putting on his uniform, and once tried to push his way past Stewart to get into the squad car in the morning.

“Mentally, he’s still there, he still wants to go,” Stewart said. “If I let him, he’d jump in the car just like he always did.”

More than three months later, though, Chief has become just another house dog, Stewart said, sleeping in, relaxing on the couch, snuggling up to Zoe, an older chocolate Labrador retriever, and tolerating Rex, a pit bull-pointer mix.

“When I left for work today, he was laying on the rug under the fan, just snoozing and hanging out with my wife while she’s working,” Stewart said.

While Chief had acclimated easily enough to Stewart’s other dogs, Jester was a bit trickier, Stewart said.

“His brain was just overwhelmed by all of this stuff, he had just come from the Netherlands to Florida, Florida to Iowa, Iowa to Spokane with me for five weeks and now here,” Stewart said.

While Chief, who was around 2 years old when Stewart started handling him, had always craved affection from anyone who would scratch behind his ears, it took a few weeks for Jester to relax around other people and animals.

Now the trio of house dogs occasionally go up to the cage of Jester’s king-sized kennel and exchange puppy pleasantries, but Stewart still wouldn’t let both Chief and Jester out at the same time, knowing how easily they could get hurt if they started fighting. But when it’s just Stewart and Jester, he’s just another dog.

“When he’s at home he’s super playful, and he’s starting to figure out how to be a dog, how to be a puppy,” Stewart said. “He rolls around in the grass, loves to fetch the ball and just prances around.”

An eight-year veteran of the force, Stewart has been working with K-9s since the department brought on Chief in 2018. Over those two years, Stewart said he’s learned a lot of lessons that make him a better partner to Jester, particularly being patient with a young pup that’s going to do a lot of learning on the job.

“A lot of people think that, you’ve got your dog, you’re certified, your dog’s turnkey and ready to go, which isn’t the case,” Stewart said. “You talk with guys who’ve been handling dogs for a lot of years, and pretty much everybody says that once your dog has figured everything out and they’re perfect, it’s about time to retire them.”

And at just over a year old, Jester still has quite a bit more learning ahead of him.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.