Senior Constable Bruce Lamb a New Zealand police dog handler died on 5/23/23 during a hunting trip with his friends. Senior Constable Bruce Lamb whose beloved police dog Gage once took a bullet from a gunman and saved his life. Bruce was hunting in the Ashburton Lakes area when he died suddenly. Bruce had been part of the Canterbury Police family for 45 years and was one of New Zealand Police’s longest-serving dog handlers. He was well known and well respected across the organization and in the communities, he served. Lamb, a father of three, including two police officers – dedicated his life to policing, Lamb became emotional when paying tribute to his dog Gage, who was posthumously awarded the UK’s highest honor for animal bravery. “Without him, I simply wouldn’t be here,” Lamb told a gathering of his colleagues where Gage’s bravery and sacrifice was recognized with the PDSA Gold Medal. At 11am on July 13, 2010 officers passing a house in the Christchurch suburb of Phillipstown noticed a strong smell of cannabis. They went to the door and arrested a man there and called for back-up. Lamb and Gage arrived and went inside where they found Christopher Graeme Smith, 35, inside a locked bedroom. Smith coughed to disguise cocking his rifle before Lamb entered. The gunman fired two shots, one narrowly missing Lamb’s head, the other smashing into his jaw. As he fell, Lamb called out to alert his colleagues. Smith cocked his gun again and as he went to shoot Lamb again, Gage’s training kicked in and he jumped into the line of fire. “I can still feel Gage going over me. Without a doubt, his actions on the day saved my life,” Lamb said at the time. Smith fired again and hit Constable Mitch Alatalo. Lamb dragged Gage, still on his lead, outside the house. It wasn’t until he was outside that he realized Gage was dead. Lamb drove himself to hospital and radioed police comms: “Delta One to Comms…I’ve got a gunshot wound to the head… can you tell my boss that my dog is dead please.”Gage was a 6-year-old German shepherd. Smith was sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison for attempted murder and other offences. He has since been declined parole 11 times. Lamb was shot at three times in his career and was also first on the scene at one of New Zealand’s first active shooter events, where a man was shot in Cathedral Square in 1989. Lamb worked with detector dogs finding drugs. He and Luther, a black Labrador, went on to find $168,000 in one haul in the lining of a car door. Lamb’s son, Michael, continued in the family tradition, graduating from the Dog Training Centre at Trentham in 2021. His other son, Christopher, is also in the force. In 2021.
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