Dennis Smith looks at his job differently than most people.
"When I come into work each day, I think, 'Who's going to get charged with drugs today?'" Smith said
Smith is a deputy with the Catawba County Sheriff's Office.
His excitement for his job shows, though only part of it involves drug investigations with his K9 partner Jak. That attitude has paid off with Smith and his last partner, Max, winning the 2008 American Police Canine Association President's Award.
This is the second year in a row Smith and Max won that award for the amount of drugs and money they found during narcotics investigations and traffic stops.
This year's award is sweeter for Smith because Max passed away July 16 from a malignant tumor on his liver.
"The president of the association presented the award to me and he got all choked up because he knew Max," Smith said.
"Then, other people came up to me to congratulate me and I had to go to the back to get myself together, to get my composure. Later, I just sat and looked at the award, and then …" he stopped, "That's my boy. There's no other way of looking at it."
Smith and Max were partners for four years.
Johnson saluted Max and Smith on the APCA's Web site, www.americanpolicecanineassociation.com, on Max's death.
"K9 Max and Deputy Smith were a great dynamic duo. Together they affected hundreds of arrests and were an unbeatable K9 team. As a narcotics interdiction team, they were highly effective in the seizure of significant volumes of illicit narcotics and money forfeitures throughout their law enforcement career together," Johnson wrote.
Smith got involved in the competition on invitation of the association's president, Michael Johnson.
Smith said he would send e-mails to the APCA, of which he is a member, about drug busts he and Max had been involved in. Johnson contacted Smith, asking him if he had kept track of how much drugs and cash he and Max had seized. He hadn't, but he started and sent the result to Johnson — between $120,000 and $130,000 of drugs and cash. That amount won Smith and Max the 2007 award.
They followed that accomplishment with more than $100,000 worth of drugs and cash confiscated for the 2008 award.
"This is such an honor for our department," Maj. Coy Reid of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office said. "Especially to get a national award and especially to get it two years in a row."
Reid uses words such as dependable and professional to describe Smith.
One incident sticks out to Smith. He and Max seized 32 pounds of marijuana from a vehicle.
"And that was literally a blind squirrel finding a nut. We just happened to stumble on that one," Smith said.
He stopped the vehicle for its window tinting, but he said it was an incident that just didn't feel right. The rear windows of the car were down despite the fact it was January and every time Smith tried to pass the car, it would slow down — to 40 miles per hour on Interstate 40.
Smith said taking on Jak has been different. Just like humans, each dog has its own personality and style. But the two are well on their way to awards of their own. In the month they've worked together, they've racked up eight charges.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement