Hero Labrador Working with North Carolina Sheriff's Office Helps Find Missing Child

Maverick deserves all the dog treats he can eat!

The English Labrador, a K-9 with the Union County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina, used his search and rescue skills to help officers find a child reported missing by his parents, according to WBTV.

A scent was all Maverick needed to get the job done and find the boy.

"Being that there was a risk for the juvenile to be in a bad situation, we put Maverick on a scent article, the kid's blanket, and he was able to track based off that smell," Deputy Sheriff Joshua Dye told the outlet.

Dye, Maverick's handler, added, "We tracked down to a pretty busy highway, made one turn, went down another road. When the juvenile saw us coming down the road, he actually came out of the woods and came to us, and Maverick ran right up to him, and that's how we found him."

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Dye said that without Maverick's keen nose and can-do attitude, the sheriff's office would've had a much harder time finding the missing boy.

"In that situation, we were out on, we tried to ping the juvenile's cell phone, and the cell phone was actually off, and we wouldn't have anywhere to start if we didn't have the dog with us," Dye shared.

He added successful rescues like this show why K-9s like Maverick are "very important" to law enforcement.

"We do a lot of training with him —every week with him — to make sure he stays sharp on what he's doing," Dye said, adding that Maverick is trained in narcotics detection, tracking, article searches, and basic obedience.