Retired Lake City Police Department K9 killed, handler says.

LAKE CITY, Fla. — A retired Lake City police officer is mourning the death of his partner, retired K-9 Gyllian. The family of Gyllian, also known as Gyll, says she was shot and killed on November 27 just feet from their home. 

“That wasn’t just a pet, that was my partner,” Lake City Police K-9 Handler Chauncey Mays said. 

Lake City Police Department K-9 Gyll was a 7-year-old German Shepherd. She and Mays became partners in 2020 until retiring from the department in 2022.

“She’s certified in bike training. She’s certified in tracking narcotics and article searches, pretty much everything patrol canine would do,” Mays said. “We went to work together, we came home together. We pretty much did everything together.”

Gyll retired after a medical issue. Since then, Mays says she enjoyed being a normal dog at home and playing outside. 

“She loved to play with sticks. You could go out there and throw a stick with her for four hours and she’d always come back for more. She was just a part of our family, you could take around kids and she was happy,” Mays said.

Mays described the day Gyll disappeared as a normal day.

“She was sitting out on the carport. I went to take the trash, I came back and within a span of I’d say four to six minutes, she disappeared,” Mays explained. 

Mays says they searched for Gyll thinking someone took the dog from their home. It wasn’t until the next day Mays says he found out what happened.

“I reached out to animal control to see if they had any reports of any missing dogs,” Mays said. “They told me that they had a report of a gentleman that had shot a dog on our street. I knew kind of right then because we’re the only ones that have dogs.”

Mays says his family is heartbroken and the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office is investigating. 

“Dogs are family members and more so with Gyll, she was a member of the community,” Gyll’s owner Carissa Adams said. 

First Coast News reached out to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office for more information and are waiting to hear back.