NAPD Dog Wins National Honor

Pet Sitters International, creators of Take Your Dog to Work Day, recently announced the 2011 winners of its new Working Class K-9 Hero Contest -- meant to honor dogs who work every day to improve the lives of others -- and the North Andover Police Department's Kyzer is among them.

Kyzer is an 8-year-old narcotics K-9 for the He was nominated for the award by North Andover resident and professional pet sitter Tracey Zysk of

"When I saw that Pet Sitter International was looking for nationwide Working Class K-9 Hero nominations, I knew immediately I was going to nominate Kyzer," Zysk said. "As a police dog Kyzer is trained to do specific task. He is not a family pet, he is a sworn in officer of the law."

Kyzer is credited with saving police officers' lives in 2007, when he accompanied his handler, Sgt. Charles Gray, to a shooting at a local business. Gray released the leash, and Kyzer bit the shooter's arm and knocked the gun away.

"Fortunately Kyzer was 100 percent on and did exactly what he was trained to do," Zysk said. "At that moment, although he did “his job”, doing his job accurately saved the community of North Andover from a heartbreaking tragedy."

Kyzer became a role model in the K-9 community and has been called to other communities to assist with search-and-rescues.

Recently, Kyzer's stomach flipped and he had to have stomach staple surgery.

"Most dogs don’t live through that, but Kyzer had surgery and a remarkably speedy recovery," Zysk said. "Not to mention he returned to work with little time out of service. I’m around hundreds of dogs all the time, both family pet and working dogs, and I can honestly say I have never in my career seen a dog as focused, determined and disciplined as Kyzer. He is one of a kind, and North Andover is very privileged to have him as our narcotics and tracking K-9 dog."

So North Andover can boast another hero in town, this one with four legs. Kyzer will have an award ceremony at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, just before the National Night Out, at