Man's best friend: Coralville K-9 officer remembers his longtime partner Ivan

CORALVILLE — A few months back, Coralville police K-9 officer Chad Bender sat at a K-9 demonstration with a fellow handler, Jackie Anderson of the University of Iowa Police Department.

Bender said someone asked if the dogs had ever saved their handlers' lives.

Having never been in a life or death situation, Bender initially dismissed the question. But then Bender said he considered what Anderson had gone through in the last year, how it mirrored the difficult times he had gone though and how — for both handlers — their dogs had gotten them through it.

'I kind of looked at Jackie and realized where she was going with it and I'm like, ... 'Absolutely,' ' Bender said.

Bender had been with the Coralville Police Department for seven years when he was one of two officers who put in to become the department's first K-9 officer. Bender was selected and in August 2007 he was partnered with Ivan — a Belgian Malinois trained in narcotics detection and apprehension — when he first went to Mid-Michigan Kennels for training.

'We started class on a Monday,' Bender recalls. 'The day before, I went up and picked him up at the kennel and that was kind of how we first met. There really wasn't a whole lot of time of bonding it was, 'Here you go!' '

Bender said he and Ivan spent their first year together just kind of figuring each other out. They had to learn to trust each other and Bender had to learn to trust himself as a handler, he said. But, after a year or so, Bender said they forged an unbreakable bond.

'Once we got our connection going, I knew where he was at all times,' Bender said. 'He was not very far from me. And, if I went somewhere, he was following.'

Over the next few years, Ivan and Bender made drug busts — 63 grams of crack cocaine and 11 pounds of marijuana are a couple of highlights — and arrests. Bender said Ivan was 'a very good deterrent' when it came to getting people to quit breaking the law.

'We'd go to big fights and I would just go in the middle of it and I'd roll my windows down and let him bark at everybody and it was amazing how it just got quiet,' Bender said. 'I mean, people just don't want to deal with it.'

More than anything, though, Bender said Ivan was an ambassador to the community. While Ivan was trained to sniff out drugs and take down bad guys, Bender said he had no problem taking the dog into a room full of kids.

'He was so gentle when he needed to be,' he said. 'That almost sticks out more than any of the seizures or anything else we got — just how socialized and how friendly he really was.'

In September 2013, tragedy struck. Chad's wife Kelly was diagnosed with cancer. She died a year later. That's when Ivan saved him, Bender said.

'Once she passed, he really was more of a therapy dog than anything else,' he said. 'It was amazing how if he knew I was having a bad day, he'd crawl up and lick on me. ... It was me, him and the cat for a while.'

Anderson — whose own experiences made Bender realize the impact Ivan had on his life — can relate. Anderson lost her mother to cancer in July 2016 and her dog Falo was there for her in the time leading up to and following her death. Anderson also credits her girlfriend for helping her through that difficult time.

Anderson — who admits to having a hard time sharing her emotions with other people — said she didn't have to with Falo.

'It's hard work and exhausts me at times,' she said of communicating. 'But none of that is required with him. It's a very simple interaction that can be free of all the extra encumbrance that often accompanies human communication and relationships.'

Added Anderson, 'His presence kept me afloat for many days.'

In what some might view as a cruel twist of fate, a year after Bender lost his wife to cancer, Ivan was diagnosed with cancer, as well. Doctors gave Ivan four months to live with the option of maybe tacking on a couple months if he did chemotherapy. But, after watching his wife go through chemotherapy, Bender said he didn't want to put Ivan through that.

Ivan kept going, though, and essentially worked until Bender put him down on May 3. Bender said the pair worked a normal shift and Bender stopped to get Ivan ice cream at McDonalds. They later went up to a clinic in Cedar Rapids where Ivan was put down. Afterward, officers put on a ceremony for Ivan at Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service in Coralville.

'It was heart-wrenching,' Bender said. 'But it was nice to see everybody there.'

Bender made the mistake of trying to come back to work the following day, he said. He left a couple of hours into his shift and came back work the following week.

'It's been an adjustment,' he said.

After losing his wife and then his dog and partner to cancer, few could blame Bender if he was bitter or angry, but that's not how Bender said he chooses to look at things.

'I have a job,' he said. 'I have a house. I have my health. It could be worse. There are people out there who got it a lot worse than I do. It sucks, but you know, go up to the University Hospitals any day of the week and walk through the burn unit or something like that.'

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