After years on the Austin Police force, K-9 Sonic is getting ready to retire and live it up as a regular house pet with his handler, Lt. Matt Holton.

“I’m going to keep him,” Holton said. “We’re pals. I don’t want to part with him.”

Sonic will leave the day his and Holton’s replacements — a new K-9 officer with new handler Officer Tom Brogan — take over in 2017.

“When Tom and his new partner are ready to go, that will be the day,” Holton said.

Sonic’s plans include hanging out with Holton and being a regular dog — and every now and then going on a few calls to keep up with the young dogs.

“He’s just like anybody else’s dog,” Holton said. “Inside my house is really the only place he gets to act like a dog. He sleeps in the bed, sits on the couch, just a big baby at home.”

Holton, 51, has served 29 years on the Austin Police Force and will step down from the K-9 program in 2017. He said the extra time before retirement will give a few years for the new handlers to get settled in while he’s still available to help if they need it.

Holton plans to work out a buy-back arrangement with the city, and some plans are in place for the future of the K-9 program.

Sonic is 4 years old, and Holton got him when he was 9 months old. He said it took him a long time to get certified because he was so young. Sonic started working in late 2012 and currently has about two and a half years of work experience.

The average length of a Belgian Malinois work life is eight years, and Sonic will be 6 years old when he retires and will still have time left. Yet Holton said it would be too difficult to transition Sonic to another handler after he has spent his whole career training with Holton.

“Because of the whole K-9-team thing I spend almost every minute of the day with him,” Holton said. “When I come to work, obviously he’s with me all night. When I go home in the morning — my wife works days, I work nights — so she goes off to work, and he jumps up on her side of the bed and crashes, and when I get up usually we’re doing some training or something together. He’s pretty much with me all day.”

Brogan will likely get a German shepherd, a breed that will do better with Brogan’s young children than a Belgian Malinois. Brogan will get his new partner in early 2017 and then go through narcotics and patrol training.

Brogan isn’t the only new handler, as another officer, Derek Ellis, will also handle a K-9 officer — Rudy — who is currently in training for narcotics and will start going on narcotics calls before Christmas. He should also be patrol certified by spring. Holton said a big part of the job is helping other officers search for drugs on traffic calls.

The Austin Police Department has been working with one K-9 officer for the last year-and-a-half after Bosco retired. As the county has no K-9 program, Sonic and Holton have helped them out and had about 116 deployments last year. This year, they are already pushing 100 deployments.

“There’s a ton of work around here for K-9s,” Holton said.

Although Sonic has only been working since 2012, Holton has worked with the K-9 program almost his entire career in some shape or form.

“I started out as a decoy, and then as a handler, then as a unit supervisor. Now I’m handling a dog and supervising,” he said. “So I’ve been involved with a dog pretty much ever since I walked in the door.”

He is stepping down because despite his love for the job, he said it’s time to hand it over to other officers.

“It’s a lot of work and I’ve been doing it for a long time, and it’s just time for me to let some of the other guys do it,” he said. “And this way I’ll be here for a couple years to kind of help them with a couple of things.”

Holton will take on other responsibilities, such as helping with fundraising for the K-9 program to let the new handlers have more time training their partners. He’ll also help with administrative work.

“We’ve got a pretty good tradition with our K-9 program and those guys are going to need to concentrate on getting their dogs ready to go,” he said.

Holton explained the job is a lot of work and a big time commitment, which is why many departments have trouble finding people to work in the K-9 unit. He noted both the Albert Lea and Freeborn County departments discontinued their programs due to lack of participants.

Overall, Holton is excited to let Sonic start his new career as a family dog.

“We’re going to hang out and play together, and I’ll probably still run out with the guys for training purposes and bring him along just to kind of give him something to do, but he’s really good at home,” he said. “My kids are both older but they’re home periodically. He’s a great family dog. He’s awesome with my wife and my kids.”