New K-9 helps Gibson County get drugs off streets
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GIBSON COUNTY, Tenn. — A new officer joins the Gibson County Sheriff’s Department, making history. His job — getting illegal drugs off the street. But this is not your ordinary deputy. In fact, he does not even earn a salary. He is more of a man’s or a deputy’s best friend. “The dog stays with my deputy, he lives with my deputy and he goes home with him every night,” Gibson County Sheriff Paul Thomas said. But this dog is not your ordinary family pet — he is the newest member of the department, and he is there to sniff out trouble. “Basically he’s finding the four major types of narcotics,” Gibson County Deputy Ben Hemann said. “Heroine, cocaine, meth and marijuana.” Brinkley is a golden retriever and is a year and a half old. He went through two months of training before coming to Gibson County. Now he will be out on the streets every day, trying to curb the county’s drug problem. “It sends a message, a physiological message to the drug dealers in the county that we have this now,” Thomas said. “They’re aware of it.” Brinkley and Hemann have not been out on many calls yet but are training every day, placing drugs in everything from tall grass to cars, honing Brinkley’s unique sense of smell. “Like a cheeseburger, we just smell the cheeseburger,” Hemann said. “But he smells the lettuce, tomato, the meat and cheese. It’s pretty neat.” No matter the drug nor the hiding spot, Brinkley knows when he finds it, he gets rewarded. “If he smells like marijuana, he knows that, ‘well, that’s the odor me and my owner get to play with,’ so he’ll go to the strongest source,” Hemann said. Thomas said money from the department’s drug fund is being used for all of Brinkley’s costs. He will be available for any police department in the county to use as well.
