From rescue dog to drug dog | K-9 Maverick Joins East Wenatchee Police Department | News

EAST WENATCHEE — The East Wenatchee Police Department's K-9 program ended in 2011, but this year a dedicated officer and a rescue dog brought it back to life.

Maverick, a three-year-old German Shepherd, was donated to the Narcotic Detection Program as a rescue dog after he “failed as a pet.” When EWPD officer and K-9 handler Jordan Conley joined the program, he was paired with Maverick because of their “personalities and drives.” The dynamic duo completed the program on September 19th.

“Officer Conley actually made a proposal that he presented to me and the deputy chief. It was about everything from adopting the dog to fundraising to maintaining the program,” East Wenatchee Police Chief Rick Johnson said. “When he presented it to me, I said, OK, let’s present it to the mayor and the city council. We achieved a really successful result.”

The next step that had to be taken care of was financing. EWPD predicted the program would cost an estimated $35,000 in 2024, a large amount that they expected would be difficult to raise. To her delight and surprise, it only took eight months.

“In just eight months we raised $30,000,” Johnson said. “All from a local community grant, which was about $8,000, and the rest came from local donations; Citizens and companies.”

Fentanyl-detecting K-9s have previously only been a resource for Washington prisons. Having one now as a local resource is a tool that Johnson believes will produce “positive results.”

“We knew that fentanyl was an epidemic in Washington state and also in our region given the number of overdoses and cases that we have,” Johnson said. “There are currently all sorts of approaches to combating the fentanyl crisis, but enforcement and detection and removing fentanyl from the streets are still an important part of it.”

Maverick was sold to the community as a regional resource, meaning he supports other law enforcement organizations rather than working exclusively with the EWPD.

“We didn’t want to raise funds for him to only be deployed in East Wenatchee. Part of the interagency local collaboration that takes place here in this valley is the sharing of such resources and tools. So the other agencies know he’s working,” Johnson said.

Now Maverick lives with Conley and the two have become very close.

“He’s pretty protective of me and we like to have fun. It’s all just a big game to him,” Conley said. “He doesn’t know he’s finding drugs.”

Maverick's training included five weeks in the Airway Heights prison and a week of “on-the-road” training where he was primed for fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

“He usually travels in a car. That's what gets him the most attention while working on the streets. He will begin an exterior search. He searches door seams, underneath and everywhere. If he detects a smell, he will begin a behavior change,” Conley said. “If he gets closer to the smell or the source, if it's a lot of smell, he'll do a sit reaction.”

Maverick was called to a traffic stop on Thursday and conducted an exterior search of the vehicle before alerting Conley to any odorous substances. A search warrant was obtained and later found a stolen firearm, half a pound of methamphetamine, 300 fentanyl pills and an unknown amount of fentanyl powder, Johnson said.

“We are really fortunate to have one (a drug detection K-9) in our community and I think we will see the benefits of it in the next few years,” Johnson said.