{"id":244012,"date":"2026-04-24T00:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/244012\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T00:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:00:08","slug":"fort-lauderdale-k-9-out-of-the-hospital-after-being-shot-on-duty-by-a-burglary-suspect-over-the-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/244012\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lauderdale K-9 out of the hospital after being shot on-duty by a burglary suspect over the weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Fort Lauderdale Police Department K-9 officer is back home, recovering after he was shot in the shoulder <\/a>while apprehending a burglary suspect Saturday.<\/p>\n

K-9 officer Appie, a Belgian Malinois, received a hero’s welcome from fellow officers after his successful five-hour surgery.<\/p>\n

Fort Lauderdale Police<\/a> Chief Bill Schultz praised the dog’s bravery. “Today, we celebrate not just survival, but heroism. Appie, he is, and always will be our canine hero,” Schultz said.<\/p>\n

The shooting occurred as Appie pursued suspect Christian Bouie. “As Appie was making contact with the suspect, the suspect produced a firearm and fired two rounds, striking our canine,” said Sgt. Dan Geiger of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. “The suspect then fled the area.”<\/p>\n

The bullet’s impact broke Appie’s humerus in two places, requiring vets to insert screws to repair the bone. Dr. Kevin Frame, a surgeon at Blue Pearl Pet Hospital, said Appie was fortunate.<\/p>\n

“I actually think he was very fortunate. It seems like the bullet actually ricocheted off the bone and caused the break instead of kind of going right through it,” Frame said.<\/p>\n

Medical Director Dr. Sagen Woolery emphasized the severity of the injury. “Although it injured his arm an inch one direction or another, this could have been a life-ending injury for him,” Woolery said.<\/p>\n

Appie, who is described as loving all the attention, still faces a long road to recovery. Vets believe he will need up to 12 weeks for recovery and will require physical therapy at least twice a week for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

“Everybody looks at him as a dog, but he’s one of us,” Geiger said. “He’s an officer with us. He’s our partner, and we’re going to stand by him through this whole thing.”<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fort Lauderdale Police Department K-9 officer is back home, recovering after he was shot in the shoulder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,1550,249,251,250,8999],"class_list":["post-244012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-dogs","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-fort-lauderdale-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}