At a Thursday afternoon ceremony in Winston-Salem, three dogs took on three distinct assignments. Jade, a four-year-old Belgian Malinois/German Shepherd mix, was sworn into the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office beside Plott Hound brothers Charlie and Farley. Her place there carried a connection no certification could fully capture.
Before Jade became Lieutenant Seth Carter’s K-9 partner, she belonged to Deputy Auston Reudelhuber, a Forsyth County deputy killed in the line of duty in 2023.
“K-9 Jade originally belonged to one of my guys that was lost in the line of duty, Deputy Auston Reudelhuber,” Carter said.
Reudelhuber already understood the bond and demands of K-9 work. He had served as a handler in Davidson County before transferring to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office. Carter said his colleague later spoke about missing that part of the job. Shortly before his death, Reudelhuber bought Jade because he wanted another dog to fill that absence in his life.
On the morning of Sept. 9, 2023, Reudelhuber was driving his patrol vehicle to report for his shift when a box truck struck him, according to the sheriff’s office’s official memorial for fallen deputies. He was fatally injured.
Jade’s path into service opened later, when Reudelhuber’s wife, Rachel, learned that his other dog, Ranger, was retiring. She contacted the sheriff’s office and sold Jade to the agency. Jade then completed training and earned certification as a patrol dog.
Her listed specialties narcotics detection, tracking, search and criminal apprehension place several kinds of work within one partnership. An official police K-9 program overview from Hartford, Vermont, explains that patrol functions can include tracking, apprehension and building searches, while detection work relies heavily on a dog’s nose to locate targets such as hidden narcotics or evidence.
Certification matters because a working K-9 is not simply a capable dog acting alone. The dog and handler operate as a team within structured training and legal requirements. U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s canine program, which trains teams for multiple government agencies, bases its certified instruction on federal and internationally recognized standards and provides guidance on training, certification and legal issues.
Three dogs, different duties
Jade’s patrol and detection assignment differs from the work awaiting Charlie and Farley. The Plott Hound brothers are trained to follow human scent and assist in finding missing people.
Charlie is partnered with Corporal Ryan Rae and assigned to the Juvenile Intervention and Investigation Team. Farley, handled by Corporal Troy Curry, will work with the Field Services Division. Although both brothers share the same core tracking role, their separate assignments place that ability in different parts of the agency.
That distinction helps explain why the ceremony at the Forsyth County Public Safety Center was more than the addition of three interchangeable dogs. Each K-9 entered service with a defined handler and purpose: Jade in patrol, detection, tracking, search and apprehension; Charlie and Farley in human-scent tracking for missing-person work.
For Carter, however, Jade’s assignment also reaches backward. She will be his fourth and final K-9 partner. Their work gives him a tangible way to keep Reudelhuber’s name and his history as a handler present within the agency they shared.
Jade was once the dog Reudelhuber chose because he missed K-9 work. Now, trained and certified, she begins that work beside his former colleague, carrying the connection quietly into every assignment.
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By Jake Patterson — Freelance feature writer and former animal-shelter volunteer focused on rescue, adoption, and second-chance dog stories.
