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ST. JOSEPH — Commissioners said goodbye to one of the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department K-9 officers at Thursday’s Berrien County Commissioners meeting.

Sheriff Paul Bailey said “Maxx” is one of four K-9 officers in the department. Three of the dogs are used on the road for tracking people and detecting drugs and bombs while the fourth is assigned to the jail for drug searches. 

Maxx is nine years old and has been with the department for six years and is one of few remaining K-9 officers in the state trained in detecting marijuana, Bailey said. The dog will be sold for $1 to his original handler, Tom Dyer, a sheriff’s department lieutenant. 

Dyer said Maxx is one of the top dogs he’s seen when it comes to apprehension and tracking. “He’s still an outstanding tracking dog with the amount of seizures, arrests and finding missing and lost people he’s done,” he said. 

County Board Chairman McKinley Elliott noted that Maxx is 63 years old in human years. “He’s not old, he has a lot of living still to do,” he said.