At His Memorial, Sheriff’s K9 Kyro ‘Nubs’ Is Remembered for His Fierce Loyalty and Love of Challenges

First Baptist Church of Bunnell was the site of two funerals for law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty in 2021–the Flagler County Sheriff’s Paul Luciano that September and the Bunnell Police Department’s Sgt. Dominic Guida two months later. They were the first active-duty officers lost locally in 10 years. 

Today, the church was again the site of a memorial for a fallen officer. For the first time in Flagler County’s history, it was for a K9, a police dog, the first to lose his life in the line of duty: K9 Kyro, nicknamed “nubs” for the tail that had to be amputated from his tendency to be overexcited, died from an undetected heart ailment on Oct. 14. 

Kyro left behind his handler, Sheriff’s Master Deputy Marcus Dawson, stoic but shattered as he addressed the congregation this morning. Kyro was his normal self, his normal, crazy self, until he took his last breath,” Dawson said in his eulogy. He’d described him as a dog who met every challenge, every standard Dawson set for him, as tireless, as tirelessly hard working–Dawson said it was all play to Kyro–and blindly trusting and loyal.

 “As long as you’re with me bro, I’m with it,” is how Dawson described Kyro’s attitude toward his handler, though calling Dawson a mere “handler” is a misnomer. As Sheriff Rick Staly said at the service, Dawson lost “not only a partner, but a family member.” 

“At home, Dawson said, “Kyro was just a puppy. Every time I went outside to his kennel to let him out, his first order of business was to pull out of the kennel, take a sharp left turn, and do this one NASCAR lap around the yard before he found the perfect spot to pee. Right after that, he is coming up to me for affection, rubbing himself all over me, sometimes trying to crawl up my side to lick my face, while wagging his little nub.” He just wanted to spend every second with Dawson. 

Pews were filled mostly with uniformed officers from Flagler County and across the region, from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach and west to Madison County. At the beginning of the service Staly led the equivalent of pallbearers, one of them bearing Kyro’s ashes in a rectangular dark-wooden urn, from Kyro’s patrol car (where he took his last breath, where Dawson found him unresponsive) into the church. 

A memorial draws the deceased’s family and friends. It was no different for Kyro. After describing the impact the death of Kyro had at the agency and through its social media–a brief clip of Kyro generated the single most views (600,000) and comments (3,000), an agency record–Staly read one of the many condolence letters he received. It was from a Flagler Beach resident called Nicole, who described Kyro as “a protector and a shining of devotion and courage,” who thanked Kyro for his service, and who closed by wishing him to “meet again over the rainbow bridge, where the sun is always shining, the breeze is always good, and the toys and snacks are endless in supply.”

“I think that really sums up what a police K9 is and the impact they have, not only in the agency, with the K9 handler, but in the community,” Staly said. 

It wasn’t just the mass of uniformed officers inside the church. Outside, along just the northwestern row of the large parking lot, at least 16 K9 patrol vehicles were counted, all parked in a row, all their engines humming, all with K9s inside, some of them barking, most of them quiet. There were two units from jacksonville, half a dozen from St. Johns County, two from Daytona Beach, one from the Florida Highway Patrol, ione from Madison County, one from Holly Hill, and every one of the K( units from Flagler County, marked for their dogs–Mako, Holmes, Guapo, Nitro, Holmes, and one without a name that must’ve been for Uno. Kyro’s was up front, with a portrait of him leaning against a wheel. 

“Your support means more than we can express during this difficult time,” Staly told the congregants. 

There was a brief video of Kyro at work, at play, always with Dawson, and Dawson was presented with a “quilt of honor” from a local group before the service concluded and the assembly walked across the street to the Oeparions Center, this week renamed for Staly, for the unveiling of a memorial to Kyro. Dawson had repeatedly referred to time as “the biggest thief.” He urged his colleagues and friends, in the K9 community especially, to remember that for the dogs, training and policing is not a job. “It’s play time,” he said. “Enjoy every second of it. Enjoy every second of your partner.”