BUFFALO, N.Y. — Now the healing process begins for Buffalo Police Officer Craig Lehner's family, friends and fellow officers, as well as his four-legged partner.

"The thought of not being able to give that closure to his family and our members was just the unthinkable to us. So we were very grateful that we were able to accomplish that yesterday. Today, you can see that on the faces of the officers. The reality now starts to set in," said Lt. Jeff Rinaldo, Buffalo Police Department.

Now is the time for emotions, as officers begin to process the death of Craig Lehner, who was a nine-year veteran of the force.

"He was just a great guy, an all-around gentleman. It's just such a tragedy," said Rinaldo.

He'd been a diver with the underwater recovery team for a year when he disappeared under the waters of the Niagara River Friday. His own team recovered his body Tuesday.

"That entire team has been placed on side duty, meaning that they've been given some time off by the commissioner to just recoup, rest, spend some time with their family," said Rinaldo.

The other officer in mourning: his four-legged partner Shield.

"It seems like they were inseparable. It was training every day. Not just 40 hours a week. He was spotted down on the training field with the dog on a daily basis," said Lt. Sal Losi, of the Buffalo Police Department's K-9 Unit.

Shield and Lehner had been together for about a year. The K9 was in Lehner's patrol vehicle during the training dive Friday.

"That first few horrible hours, it did seem like he was searching for Craig. So we've been trying to keep him around familiar people, familiar surroundings to help him with the stress of the separation. The best was to reduce a dog's stress is to keep him active, so we're all keeping him active. We're all taking turns doing that. At the same time, we've got to keep an eye on our own dogs. So we're doing double duty, but nobody is complaining. We're pulling together," said Losi. 

Now Shield has to be evaluated by the team that trained him and begin the process of pairing him with a new handler.

"The process would probably be extremely difficult had it not been for the amount of training Craig Lehner has already put on this dog. People that know dogs better than me say by observing that dog, that it looks like he's been trained five, six, seven years. They can't believe Craig has only had the dog for a year," said Losi.

If they aren't able to pair Shield with a new handler, he will be put up for adoption. As for the investigation into the incident that led to Lehner's death, police officials say it could take months for them to uncover what happened.