The SAPS warned itself about Sky 10 days before she was injured
A SAPS veterinarian signed a certificate on 28 August 2026 stating that police dog Sky could not be used in the police service without compromising her welfare. Ten days later she was found in her kennel at the SAPS Roodeplaat Veterinary Hospital with both front legs broken, and she was euthanised on 9 September. Ian Cameron, chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police, has opened a criminal case and has since begun publishing the records of other SAPS dogs, including a file going back to 2018. The SAPS has said it would be premature to attribute negligence before all the facts are established.
Sky was a 5 year old Belgian Malinois trained to detect arson accelerants. She was attached to a K9 base in Limpopo before she was admitted to the SAPS Roodeplaat Veterinary Hospital in March 2026.
According to information published by Cameron, she was left unattended from the Sunday afternoon of 6 September. On the morning of Monday 7 September she was found badly injured after her leg became trapped in the kennel gate. She had multiple fractures, including an open fracture through the skin, and she was taken to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital for emergency treatment.
Her condition made anaesthetic too dangerous for surgery. On 9 September she was euthanised.
What the certificate says
The document at the centre of the story is a SAPS veterinary certificate dated 28 August 2026, signed by a Lieutenant Colonel at the Roodeplaat hospital.
It records that Sky was admitted in March 2026 with wounds to her face and legs and with some of her teeth torn from her jaw. It states that her attempts to escape the kennels continued during her admission and were persistent and compulsive, leading to significant reinjury. She was placed on Fluoxetine, an antidepressant, along with 2 further medications.
The diagnosis recorded on the certificate is separation anxiety and severe kennel stress. Under prognosis, the veterinarian wrote that Sky’s outlook in the SAPS environment was poor.
Under remarks and action steps, the certificate states that all avenues to accommodate the dog within the SAPS had been explored without success, and that she could not be safely used in the police service without compromising her welfare.
The same certificate also explains why Sky was housed in a small indoor kennel. It records that her escape attempts continued when she was left unattended in the normal outside kennels and caused injury, which made it necessary to confine her in the small inside kennels with extra measures to secure the door.
A placement request that was not escalated
Cameron said in a statement issued on 9 September that during August, SAPS members asked a colonel to approach a brigadier for permission to place Sky in a suitable home while the formal application was processed. He said that request was not escalated, and that a suitable and willing person had already been identified.
He said the SAPS must explain how a placement process that was supposedly active was allowed to run for approximately 160 days while its own veterinary personnel knew that confinement placed Sky at risk.
Take note, that is Cameron’s account. The SAPS has not confirmed it.
The SAPS has given a different version. National spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said Sky was no longer an operational police dog, that she had a history of escaping kennels at her previous base, and that she was being accommodated at the veterinary facility while arrangements were made to place her with a suitable new owner. Mathe said the donation process was still underway when the incident occurred, and that it would be premature to attribute negligence or wrongdoing before all the facts were established.
Those 2 accounts do not sit together. The SAPS describes a process that was still running. The certificate records that every option had already been tried and had already failed.
44 hours without an investigating officer
Cameron opened a criminal case over Sky’s injuries at 12:00 on Tuesday 8 September, while she was still alive at Onderstepoort. He also referred the matter to the NSPCA’s Special Projects Unit and to the South African Veterinary Council, asking them to examine the facility’s kennel safety, after-hours supervision and veterinary standards.
In a statement issued at 08:00 on Thursday 10 September, 44 hours after the case was opened, Cameron said he had still not been told who the investigating officer was. He said the docket appeared to have been registered at Pretoria Central SAPS rather than Kameeldrift SAPS, which appears to have jurisdiction over the Roodeplaat facility.
He asked whether the SAPS would have waited 44 hours to begin a proper criminal investigation if a human police member had died in suspicious circumstances.
Cameron said he had received no confirmation that anyone had been suspended, reassigned or removed from animal care or supervisory duties. He noted that precautionary suspension is not a finding of guilt but a protective measure that safeguards animals, witnesses and evidence while facts are established.
Acting National Commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane appointed a senior officer to investigate. Cameron said he supports that appointment but that an internal inquiry cannot replace an independent criminal investigation.
The NSPCA’s Special Projects Unit attended the facility on 10 September and said it would conduct an inspection of the entire facility.
Other files
Since Sky’s death, Cameron has published records relating to other SAPS dogs.
One concerns Quintin, recorded as B5145, a Labrador born at Roodeplaat in 2012 and trained as a narcotics detection dog. Cameron said correspondence supplied to him records that from 2015 Quintin suffered repeatedly from a condition his records associate with kennel stress, anxiety and boredom. He said a veterinarian recommended in May 2018 that Quintin be housed at his handler’s residence, that the correspondence says this did not happen, and that photographs taken later that year show wounds and damage to his legs.
Cameron said an occurrence book entry records that Quintin was taken out for operational duties on 20 December 2018 and returned about 45 minutes later because he was biting and injuring his leg again. Quintin was eventually removed from the kennel environment and placed with someone able to care for him.
A second file concerns Cyrus, recorded as B6392, a Labrador who served as a narcotics detection dog at Durban Central K9. Cameron said the supplied medical records begin with an open wound on his left front elbow on 10 September 2025 and then record delayed healing, progressive weight loss, a declining appetite and eventually a complete refusal to eat, ending in suspected kidney failure and euthanasia in early October 2025. He said an occurrence book entry appears to give a euthanasia date that is inconsistent with the clinical record.
Cameron said his office has been flooded with information about other SAPS animals, and that some of it cannot yet be made public because records and witnesses must be protected.
What Cameron is now asking for
Cameron has called for the Roodeplaat Veterinary Hospital to be closed to further admissions pending an independent inspection. He has also told the public not to donate dogs to the SAPS, and has gone further and said they should not sell dogs to the service either.
That position carries a cost. In January 2026 the police in the Eastern Cape publicly appealed for donated dogs, saying a shortage was affecting operations in the province. A halt in donations and sales would also reach the units where dogs are properly cared for.
Cameron has said his concern is with management rather than with handlers, and that the question is whether clear warnings were ignored.
Onderstepoort is expected to conduct a clinician-led post-mortem examination. Cameron has asked that all veterinary records, post-mortem findings, biological samples, CCTV footage, kennel registers, duty rosters, inspection records and internal communications be preserved.
Every dog in these files carries a number. Sky was recorded as B8118. Those numbers point to a register of animals owned by the SAPS. How many animals are on that register, where they are and what condition they are in has never been published.
