The Camp Verde Marshal’s Office will be selecting a new K-9 and has asked the public to provide input in helping come up with a name for the dog.
Following the sudden death of K-9 Maverick in December, Southwest Cable Services donated $13,000 to CVMO to cover the costs of acquiring another K-9.
K-9 Maverick joined CVMO as a donated, certified narcotics detection canine and worked alongside deputy Oscar Berrelez III.
“From the beginning, we were aware that Maverick had a pre-existing heart condition he was born with,” a statement from CVMO’s Facebook reads. “Despite this, we proudly accepted him, knowing the tremendous impact he could make during his time with us.”
In March 2025, Berrelez and Casey Dragos became new K-9 officers alongside the existing team of Jacob Zeid and K-9 Gunner.
Before Dragos and Berrelez were selected and received their K-9s, “Deputy Zeid was already making a huge impact,” Berrelez said. “With the three of us combined, it was total night and day difference.”
“We’re going after drug traffickers,” Sgt. Dustin Richardson said. “We have an aggressive team that is going out and utilizing these dogs for drug enforcement and detection.”
The K-9 team has been working for about two years and is seeing significant results in the community.
“We have seen a drastic reduction in all crimes across the board,” Richardson said. “Unfortunately, with substance abuse and addiction, folks have to fuel their addiction by stealing people’s property and committing crimes to support that habit. So in the reduction of drugs in the community, we’ve also seen all of our burglaries, robberies and domestic violence incidents drop.”
He claimed, in speaking with people in the community suffering from addiction, they tell CVMO that the drug dealers now avoid Camp Verde.
“It really stemmed with the formation of our team of K-9 handlers,” Richardson said. The handlers are trained to look for inconsistencies in people’s travel patterns and behavior, and will often get consent to search people’s vehicles before a dog is even deployed.
In his one year serving Camp Ve rde , K- 9 Maverick’s work resulted in about 30 arrests.
“He was phenomenal,” Berrelez said. “Maverick was the goofiest dog, had tons of love and was one of the most work-driven dogs. He was the type of dog that you would hope to get any time that you do a canine selection.”
Berrelez said he is fortunate to be a K-9 officer. His father, Oscar Berrelez Jr., was the first K-9 officer at CVMO.
“It makes a huge impact,” Oscar Berrelez III said about working with a dog. “For my first week or so without Maverick, it definitely was a huge damper on my motivation at work. He’s not just my canine partner, but my best friend.”
Southwest Cable Services approached CVMO when Maverick was still alive, but the department was not in a position to accept a fourth dog.
Hearing of Maverick’s passing, the company reached out again and asked how much it would cost to get a new dog and generously gave CVMO the amount needed, the agency stated.
In March, Berrelez, Dragos and Zeid will fly to Washington to select the new K-9 from an organization that trains dogs for law enforcement. Berrelez said he is very excited to select a dog to work with. He will interact with the different animals and find one that’s a best fit for himself and the agency.
CVMO uses single-purpose dogs trained for drug detection, not bite dogs, so they can be brought to public events. It will most likely select another Labrador retriever or a golden retriever. The dog will be trained in narcotic detection by the organization they’re getting the dog from, but will go through national certification before the K-9 can start working.
CVMO put out a call for names on its Facebook page to get the community involved and have since received numerous comments and phone calls with potential name ideas.
They will select names generated by the community to present to Southwest Cable Services and let them have first pick naming the dog in honor of their donation
