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Died – 10/7/18
Handler – Deputy Missy Carter
‘She was our kid’: Police mourn loss of Josey, bloodhound who tracked people in East Tenn.
Police in East Tennessee are mourning the sudden loss of K-9 Josey, a bloodhound who tracked suspects for miles in Maynardville, found missing people in Knoxville, and sniffed through the ashes after the wildfires that devastated Gatlinburg. Josey died unexpectedly Sunday after her handler, Deputy Missy Carter of the Union County Sheriff’s Office, returned home to find her unresponsive. Carter rushed the 7-year-old dog to the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, where she died of a fast-moving cancer that went undetected during a physical in March. “She had a mass that was attached to her spleen and her liver, and it ruptured,” Carter said through tears Tuesday. “They said that even if they had been able to do surgery, they couldn’t have saved her.” Carter’s law enforcement career began when Josey’s did. The pair started training when Josey was just four months old. The tan bloodhound, with her keen nose, droopy jowls and stubborn demeanor, quickly showed a knack for finding people. She successfully tracked her first suspect at nine months, kicking off a career that opened doors for Carter and her husband, Marvin, who is also a K-9 handler at the Union County Sheriff’s Office. “Missy and I don’t have any kids of our own. She was our kid, our first kid. We’ve had dogs off and on our whole lives, but Josey was our first working dog,” Marvin said, adding that now, the couple live with four police dogs and work as certified instructors for the Georgia National K-9 Training Center.
