Deputy Mike Fildes and K-9 Maverick will spend 12 weeks training together before the new dog joins the Clay County Sheriff’s Department. (Photo/Nancy Hanson)
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
The Clay County Sheriff’s Department’s newest recruit is learning some manners before he heads out next month to master the intricacies of law enforcement.
Maverick, a feisty, eager 2-year-old Dutch shepherd, has been spending February settling in with Deputy Michael Fildes and his family. The husky Slovakian-born canine, who closely resembled a German shepherd, will join K-9 Officer Goose on the county force in June after 12 weeks of intensive training at Mike’s side in Buffalo, Minnesota, at Performance Kennels.
Maverick replaces K-9 Officer Deacon, who retired last year after six years working with handler Sgt. Corby Nelson. At the age of 8, he was closing in on retirement age when Nelson left the department for a job in private industry. Deacon is spending his retirement years as a part of his former handler’s household.
Sheriff Mark Empting – who once aspired to be a canine handler himself – is a strong believer in what dogs contribute to law enforcement. “I like to keep two dogs on hand on opposite shifts,” he says. “They’re very important for us. As dual-purpose dogs, they work both in apprehension of fleeing suspects and narcotics detection.”
But Deacon’s unexpected retirement put the department in a bind. The cost of acquiring and training his replacement was not a part of the department’s budget. When Goose had come aboard two years earlier, the investment was $15,000. By now, it had risen 10% to $16,500.
As they did when Goose was added to the staff in 2019, the department turned to other sources for funding. A big campaign back then gathered hundreds of modest donations. One supporter printed and sold dog tags with the legend “I support Clay County K-9.” In those pre-COVID days, Junkyard Brewing and the TAK Event Center hosted successful events.
This time around, Empting called on local businessman Roger Erickson of Farmstead Living, who several years ago had offered to help underwrite a K-9 (the common term for dogs in law enforcement and the military). “When Deacon left, I reached out to him,” Empting reports. “He gave us a very generous donation that covered well over half the cost.” Another contribution, this one from Johnson’s Auto Repair, and a grant from the U.S. K-9 Association made up the balance.
Maverick isn’t Fildes’ first “green dog,” as he puts it. He’s his third. The deputy joined the sheriff’s department 11 months ago after about 10 years with the Moorhead Police. There, he was partnered with Argo for nearly 8 years after an abortive experience with a pup named Miko who washed out of the rigorous training program.
So Fildes has been around this block before. After welcoming Maverick into his own home for the past month, he’s getting set to spend the next 12 weeks at the training center in Buffalo near the Twin Cities. They’ll train as a team, bonding as partners while the rambunctious K-9 masters the kind of tracking and detection that will make him invaluable back in Moorhead.
“The bond between K-9 and handler is key,” Empting points out. Deputy and dog will spend 24 hours a day together, more or less, as they serve together. Not only do K-9s travel in the back of officers’ cars; they come home with them every night, becoming a literal part of their own family.
In Fildes’ case, that includes his wife Erin and their three boys, ages 5, 3 and 1. Nor will Maverick be an only dog. The Fildes family includes Argo, the retired police dog; a young black lab named Nellie, and for now, Mike’s in-laws’ husky Rio. “There’s quite a bit of puppy left in Maverick,” Fildes concedes. “He is pretty calm when he’s alone, but when he and Nellie get going, it’s like a tornado going through the house.”
Since Maverick arrived in Moorhead at the end of January, Fildes says he has been teaching him manners. Dogs arrive in the U.S. with nothing – not even a name. (“In Slovakia I think they call them all ‘dog,’” he notes.) These weeks have been full of learning basic obedience commands: “sit,” “down,” “heel” and “wait” (“so he won’t come busting out of the car when the door opens”). The toughest of all is “out,” commanding that the dog spit out whatever he is holding in his mouth. “That’s the most difficult thing he’ll learn over his entire career,” the deputy says.
Maverick is the near-opposite of Fildes’ old partner Argo. “Argo is more manic. He doesn’t like to sit still. He’s possessive,” he explains. “Maverick is a lot calmer … and bigger.” The younger dog weighs more than 80 pounds, compared to Argo’s 55. That can be a challenge when the team is tracking a suspect cross country. “When the dog comes to a fence, you have to lift him over,” the officer says with a grin. “I’m glad there aren’t too many fences in Clay County.”
The hardest part of the training that lies ahead for man and dog, he says, is being patient. “If you give your dog an inch, he’ll take a mile,” he observes. “A dog feels an inbred urge to be the alpha. You have to recognize the times he’s challenging you versus times he just doesn’t get it.”
At the end of the training, both Maverick and Mike will be tested before they’re certified. But training doesn’t stop once the intensive course is complete. The K-9 and his handler are required to put in a minimum of 16 hours of training every month. Much of it is spent socializing the animal – important, since he’ll spent a substantial part of his time among the public, including visits to schools.
Though much of his assignment will be chasing adults suspected of committing crimes, Clay County’s K-9s can tug at heart strings, too. Empting tells of an encounter Deacon had during his early days on the force. “An autistic child got lost at Buffalo River Park, and night was coming on. They called Corby and Deacon to the scene. Within five minutes, Deacon found the little kid clinging to the river bank.
“That one case paid for every dog this department will ever have.”
