Daniel Peabody loved his dogs.

At least, that’s the way it looked to students whenever Peabody, a hulking and heavily tattooed school cop, strode into northern Georgia classrooms with a K-9 at his side.

The lieutenant loved his animal partners so much that when one dog retired, Peabody promptly adopted him.

But Peabody wasn’t the dog savior he portrayed himself to be, authorities say.

Instead, the veteran K-9 officer now stands accused of leaving one police dog in a roasting car to die and executing another.

On Tuesday, investigators announced that the remains of a third dog — unearthed in Peabody’s back yard — indicated the animal also had been shot, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The alleged case of animal cruelty is all the more bizarre because of the special protections police departments bestow on the expensive and highly trained animals.

In Georgia, for instance, it is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison to intentionally kill a K9 — a penalty stiffened just last year after a police dog was killed in the line of duty.

Few in Cherokee County could have imagined that the biggest threat to a beloved police dog was the man holding its leash.

Daniel Peabody. (Cherokee County Marshal’s Office)

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