Deputy Dawg, Sheriff’s Deputy Cade Have Grown Into Crime-Fighting Team

2-12-10

By LAURA COX : COOPERSTOWN





Deputy Cade “ is not compensated for the extra training or for having a dog 24/7, which is like having a child.” Richard J. Devlin Jr., Otesgo County Sheriff

Dogs are a man’s best friend.  And they make pretty great co-workers too, even if their badges do have to hang from their collars.
For going on eight years, the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department has been assisted by Marty, a German shepherd named after former Sheriff Martin Ralph, who passed away in 1994.
The dog has been an invaluable member of the department having helped make an uncountable number of drug arrests county-wide.  Marty was in the spotlight last October for his role in the heroin arrest on Walnut Street, next to Cooperstown Elementary School.
Marty came to the Sheriff’s Department as an 11th month old puppy assigned to Deputy Stan Cade by the veterinarian technician at the State Police K-9 Training Facility. 
Cade remembers standing in line with multiple state troopers waiting to be assigned his dog. As he waited for his turn he watched as one of the dogs came charging to the front of the kennel and grabbed at the fencing with his teeth.
“I thought to myself, somebody is going to have their hands full,” Deputy Cade recalled, and that somebody was him.
The dog was signed over to have his hands full. After bringing his dog home to his family in Cherry Valley, Deputy Cade learned that his new dog and partner had no manners. When his daughter Cassandra came down to meet Marty, he chased her right back up the stairs and into her room.
But it didn’t take long for Marty to settle in, learn commands, finish his drug detecting training and get to work at the Sheriff’s Office.
“Marty is an asset to the department,” said Sheriff Richard J. Devlin Jr., “And Deputy Cade goes above and beyond. He is not compensated for the extra training or for having a dog 24/7, which is like having a child.”
The sheriff mentioned that Marty has not only helped make drug busts, but he was also a crucial component in other cases like a couple years ago when two children went missing in Milford.  Marty found the children using his tracking abilities.
“It was something we would have spent hours to do with a land search, but Marty took us right to them. It could have been a different outcome if they had been overnight in the woods,” said Sheriff Devlin, then Milford fire chief. 
Marty is all business when he is at work, he knows exactly what his job is and he takes it very seriously. Deputy Cade has trained Marty so he is given certain clues for what his particular task is. When he is in his tracking harness he knows he is tracking a scent; a certain collar means he’s looking for drugs.
Deputy Cade and Marty are together all the time whether at home on the farm where Marty plays second fiddle to the family pug  – who, while much smaller, rules the roost – or at the office where Marty likes to curl up under Deputy Cade’s desk, the two are inseparable.
Deputy Cade has enjoyed working with Marty and called him a real treat to train because the dog is so intelligent. He has also been satisfied by the work they do together to put criminals behind bars and get drugs off the streets.