NYPD crime-fighting dog Bear received a walkout ceremony today as he was discharged from a hospital after being injured in the line of duty.
The city’s top cop, Ray Kelly, joined dozens of officers and their K-9 partners standing at attention outside the Animal Medical Center on the Upper East Side, as the five-year rookie dog and his partner, Office Vincent Tieniber returned to their marked patrol car.
The K-9 will soon be back on the job after undergoing surgery for four fractured teeth and a sliced tongue. A woman in a cat-fight turned her rage on the police dog and kicked him in the face, leaving a sneaker print on Bear’s snout, police said.
“Aw, poor baby,” spectators fawned while the six-year-old German Shepherd received the walk-out ceremony, a tradition for law enforcement officers injured in the line of duty. “How cute.”
Ravenia Matos-Davis, 22, of Queens, was fighting with three other women in the 59th Street Subway station on Lexington Avenue on June 18, when cops tried to break up the fist-to-cuffs and Matos-Davis and the other women attacked Bear and his brothers in blue, cops said.
The K-9 was able to chomp down on the violent suspect’s foot and hold her until cops could cuff her, police said. The woman was not injured, police added.
Tieniber, the dog’s handler, suffered a sprained wrist after the woman resisted arrest after another officer, Rafael Diaz, was shoved by the unruly women, according to the NYPD.
“These dogs are there to protect officers and people,” said one transit bureau cop. “Tieniber responded to an officer needing assistance and the dog was used to stop the officer from getting hurt. As a result the dog got hurt.”
The K-9 has five years on the job, while his partner has 11 years.
“We all work together so nobody wants to see anybody’s dog get hurt,” a fellow K-9 handler said, adding that Bear and Tieniber have a close relationship.
“All of us take our dogs home with us, on vacation, anywhere we can bring them,” he said. “When you take the animal home and you’ve had them for five years and you bathe them it’s like having another kid.”
Doctors at the hospital were just as smitten by the four-legged crime-fighter.
“He’s a great dog,” Dr. Stephen Riback said. “He’s one of our favorites here.”
Tieniber was by his partner’s side as the duo walked out of the hospital and through the ceremony. Bear was a little groggy from anaesthesia but Tieniber was optimistic.
“He woke up pretty quick,” the officer said. “He’ll recover well.”
kconley@nypost.com