Isanti County Sheriff's Office mourns loss of K9 Karma

The Isanti County Sheriff’s Office has reported that K9 Karma was pronounced deceased on Aug. 8 after pursuing two suspects in an incident the day prior.

According to sheriff Wayne Seiberlich, Karma began to show signs of medical distress after tracking a suspect in a narcotics investigation-turned-pursuit.

Karma did not make physical contact with the individuals involved in the pursuit, or with any controlled substances.

"Within a couple of hours after the incident, Karma's handler started to notice some signs of medical distress, and was monitoring that and brought Karma to a veterinary clinic," Seiberlich said on Tuesday. "They weren't sure what was going on, and they started doing some transfusions with plasma, to try to maybe get the dog's blood platelets to recover."

Seiberlich added that Karma's condition deteriorated overnight, and the K9 was moved from a location in Blaine to Golden Valley.

The cause of death was determined as heat stroke.

"Statistically, sadly, heat stroke is the number one cause of fatalities in police K9s," Seiberlich said.

K9 Karma will be returned to the sheriff's office the week of Aug. 18, and a funeral procession and public service will be planned at a later date.

"We don't look at our K9s as dogs or pets, they are our partners," Seiberlich said. "We see them every single day. They are a part of our duties when we're on our shifts."

Seiberlich also thanked the community for an outpouring of support.

"Through this tragedy, we saw that there's so much good still in this world, and so much love in this world, and there are so many people within our community and even outside across the country were donating to a GoFundMe page to help Karma," he said.

The GoFundMe page will remain open for support for the K9 program.

Photo from GoFundMe page