Maverick is a special goofy kind of K9. He had been described by our local vet as the nicest K9 they've ever met as he is always happy and is a very energetic/spazzy K9. When it's time to work though, he flips the switch and goes into work mode. He's quiet as a mouse in the car but when I get him out to work, his energy leaks out and barks non-stop.

Fellow officers get a good laugh at Maverick with how happy he always is (tail always wagging). During rollcalls in the morning, I occasionally bring him in to be around the shift. When we are having a halfway serious conversation debriefing an incident from the prior shift or talk about the plans for the day, people laugh as Maverick is constantly letting out the tinniest whines just so everyone knows that he is impatiently waiting to go to work and run around.

Maverick's love for any toy is top notch (above food and decoy/man). His favorite toy is any of the Kong items. We currently use a solid black Kong bone as his primary toy. He has punctured his teeth in the rubber of the circular Kong toys and even got his hole lower jaw stuck in the bottom of one. He had to be knocked out and the Kong had to be cut off by the local emergency vet.

At the house, Maverick enjoys taking upside down snoozes and chewing on his regular bone to clean his teeth. Maverick gets along well with our older Shepherd (Atticus) who is 2x the size of Maverick (65LBS) but Maverick is definitely the Alpha. Maverick also gets along with our 2 cats and only sniffs them.

Maverick had it rough last year as we had multiple surgeries but still maintains such a happy attitude. Maverick's spleen flipped Christmas 2024 and had emergency surgery to have that removed. Due to Maverick's love for the toy, the hardest battle for us to has been the "toy out." We went from a Kong toy to a blast hose, to a PVC pipe, hoping something solid he wouldn't find as interesting and could get him to operate in a lower drive to work the toy out. That backfired as during training, Maverick grabbed the end of the pipe, went to get a better grip and bite deeper, and the pipe stabbed him in the roof of his mouth, and he had surgery on that. Again, same Happy Mav. Later on towards the end of the year, he broke a back molar and that had to be extracted. We are back to the Kong Bone that is solid rubber. Maverick is doing great and we are on the up and up!