Editor’s note: The symmetry of 52 weeks in a year and 26 letters in our alphabet inspired us here at The Eatonton Messenger to embark on an alphabetical journey every other week in 2023, looking at something – or someone – unique, significant, unusual, or just plain interesting in Putnam County, Georgia, home to 10 different locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places – including the Putnam County Courthouse as part of Eatonton’s official historic district.
Good boy, good girl.
That’s the verdict on Nix, a six-year-old, deputized Belgian Malinois that specializes in drug detection, tracking, and apprehension for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), and Cora, a female explosives-detecting and tracking specialist German Shepherd.
Together they make up the county’s K-9 roster, aided by Sheriff’s Deputies Chris Donovan and Holly Collins, respectively.
In a small field just outside the razor-wire-topped fence surrounding the Putnam County Jail, Nix makes very short work of finding two grams of cocaine hidden minutes earlier by Donovan. He rewards Nix by balancing a big, rubber bone on the dog’s head until he’s given the command to snatch it out of the air. Nix happily chews on the bone with his long, sharp, formidable white teeth while lying in the grass.
Next, it’s Cora’s turn to strut her stuff as she searches first for a sample of TNT and then a small amount of Semtex plastic explosive, widely considered difficult to detect since it gives off little odor. Cora is more than up to the task, though, finding both with little fanfare and within perhaps two minutes, simply sitting down as soon as she sniffs out her mission.
While drug dogs are trained to make aggressive alerts, Donovan explains that bomb-sniffing dogs need to provide more subtle indications.
“You don’t want them jumping around because it might make something go boom,” he says. “I mean, you never know if it’s got a trigger on it or something.”
Donovan is a veteran of the Putnam County K-9 unit, having previously worked with Aska, a now-14-year-old German Shepherd that retired from PCSO service four years ago. She now lives out her life as a family pet at home with Donovan, his wife, their two young daughters, and Nix.
“They’re like brother and sister,” Donovan says of his K-9 companions.
Collins began her law enforcement career as a Putnam County deputy in 2016 after previously serving as a dispatcher. Within two years on the road, she says Sheriff Howard Sills asked if she’d like to become a certified K-9 handler with Cora, donated to the sheriff’s office by a former co-worker.
In 2018, Collins and Cora attended training for NNDDA (National Narcotic Detector Dog Association) certification with Marsha Peavy at South Georgia K-9s in Dooly County, and they’ve been inseparable since. With Cora now eight years old, she’s facing retirement in about two years and Collins confirms she’ll remain with her the rest of her life.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who retired a dog that didn’t just keep them,” she says. “We’re with them pretty much 24/7, so there’s no way I could ever give her up now. We’re definitely a team.”
For Nix, the next task at hand was more training at Fire Station No. 9 on Union Chapel Road, where Putnam County firefighter Josh Beck had agreed to put on the “bite suit” Donovan carries in the back of his SUV and act as a fleeing suspect for Nix to find and aggressively convince to surrender.
Beck has served as the “bite dummy” before, so he was familiar with the jacket that features strong, two-inch thick, bite-proof material and weighs more than 30 pounds.
Hiding between dumpsters in the convenience station behind the firehouse, Beck heard Donavan shout three times: “Suspect, show yourself or I’ll send the dog in, and he’ll bite!”
Donovan said he’s only had to deliver those words in earnest about a dozen times in his career as most fleeing suspects will surrender as soon as they realize a dog is on their tail.
“And I only had to send him in once,” he recalls. “And that guy gave up within a few seconds.”
This time, Nix began with a perimeter sweep to find his target and quickly homed in on Beck. He latched on to the bright red jacket’s arm while wrapping his front legs around Beck’s leg and clearly was not going to release until Donovan gave the command.
At that point, the dog immediately released and returned to his partner’s side.
It’s not all about finding drugs and chasing bad guys for Nix and Donovan, though. They’ve also played roles in tracking lost hikers and hunters in the nearby national forest, searched for others from above in helicopters, and visited local schools where Nix loves the attention from dozens of kids who pet him from nose to tail.
Donovan says there’s no such thing as the “perfect dog,” but he firmly believes Nix is as close as possible, in every instance.
“When he comes inside, he knows he’s off duty, and that’s what you want, a well-rounded dog. I stress that and I trust him with my family,” Donovan says. “And I don’t want to exaggerate this, but if I was being attacked by a 300-pound man and Nix, he’s only 60 pounds, but he would put up the fight. It’s like if I told him to charge the Gates of Hell and take down Satan himself, he would do it. And he would expect to win.”