Retired Seymour Police Department K-9 Ace dies

As Cpl. Adam Surface and K-9 Ace tracked down a motorcycle theft suspect in a swampy, wooded area, a piece of advice from Master Trainer Glenn Jackson came to mind: “You’ve got to trust your dog.”

Surface wasn’t on duty for the Seymour Police Department at the time, but he was called to the area to assist other agencies, including ranking members of SPD and the Indiana State Police and other local law enforcement.

When he arrived, Surface said all eyes were on him and his dog, and it was a little intimidating when he saw administration among the responders.

Jackson, who works for Police Service Dog Consulting in Jeffersonville, would have been proud of Surface because he followed his advice and Ace got the job done.

“Sure enough, he led us right to the guy that was hiding in the middle of the woods, and (the suspect) gave up,” Surface said of the incident about five years ago. “Basically, it was a non-physical apprehension. Ace didn’t have to bite him. He gave up, but we found him.”

Surface beamed with pride while walking out of the woods.

“To walk out and everybody know that we found him, they are like, ‘Holy cow! That dog did a great job,’” he said. “That was something that really, to me, was memorable that you couldn’t ask for a better outcome given everybody that was there. That would definitely be a defining moment for us.”

That’s just one example of Ace’s work in his seven-and-a-half-year career with SPD, and it’s a story Surface will always treasure, maybe now more than ever.

On March 1, SPD announced on its Facebook page that Ace died. He was 10 years old and had been retired since September 2020 due to health complications.

“Prior to this, Ace served our department and community proudly, consistently displaying the utmost tenacity and courage,” the post reads. “Officers were relieved every time Ace was called on scene, and he is responsible for taking an enormous amount of narcotics off of the Seymour streets. Off duty, Ace loved to play with his toys and have fun with his family. Rest easy, buddy. You were the best boy.”

Surface said at the time of his retirement, Ace had developed tumors inside the nerves on his front shoulders.

“The bite work side of this is so rough on dogs with the amount of force and things like that that it can take,” Surface said. “These are working dogs. You don’t want to work that dog until he has no more life left.”

Dr. H.R. Gough at Clarksville Animal Hospital, who provides free veterinary services for K-9s, told Surface if he wanted the dog to have a life that’s meaningful, it was time to retire.

When former SPD K-9 officer Devlin McMindes found out Ace was retired and Surface was in the process of getting another dog certified, he told him he would love to have Ace for his family.

“I talked it over with my family and decided that would be fine,” Surface said. “Devlin got him shortly after his retirement, took him to his house and Ace lived with Devlin up until the other night when he ended up having to be put down.”

McMindes had tried different treatments to help Ace, but his health issues had continued to decline.

The family recently returned home after going out to eat and Ace was lying on his side having seizures and didn’t come back out of it.

McMindes told Surface he decided to have Ace cremated, and when Christensen Family Funeral Home in Seymour found out he was a retired K-9, they took care of everything.

“As much as Ace was a huge part of our family, he was loved as much by Devlin’s family and became a companion to his daughter. That dog was Devlin’s daughter’s dog,” Surface said.

“I talked to him the other day and he said that Ace really in his older years was the boss of everything there and the one that calmed every situation down between anything else that was going on at that household,” he said. “Devlin was huge in that and loved and cared for Ace as much as what we did. I am so very happy about what he has done.”

Being a K-9 handler for nearly 11½ years, Surface said he has developed a connection with each of his dogs — first Niko, then Ace and now Nash.

“The things that I have given up to be a K-9 handler, if I didn’t have a wife that was as strong as she was and supported what I did, I would have never been this successful in K-9 as I’ve been,” he said. “That’s what it takes because there’s so much time and effort to be successful as a handler. You’ve got to have that support with your family and your department.”

Surface began working for SPD 13 years ago and received the opportunity to become a K-9 handler in 2010.

“I had always wanted to be a police officer since I was a kid, always had that admiration to be a K-9 handler if I could, always had dogs, always loved dogs,” he said. “I just was intrigued by that whole side of that. I was fortunate enough to get one really early. I had about a year and a half on when I got a dog.”

Niko, a Malinois Shepherd mix, was 2 years old when he and Surface went through training with Jackson and Rick Ashabranner, who are master trainers for the North American Police Work Dog Association.

Surface said he and his dog have to get certified on an annual basis. Both Niko and Ace were trained for suspect apprehension and illegal narcotics.

“The time invested in being a K-9 handler, to be successful, we laugh about it, but we spend more time with the dog than we spend with our family a lot of times,” he said. “Then our dogs live at the house with us.”

All of that time is worth it when the handler sees the dog in action. Surface said it can take up to a year for a handler and a dog to become a good team.

“It’s amazing what a dog truly can do and the information that they retain. It’s unbelievable,” Surface said. “People really don’t understand what was put into a dog to be able to do what they do. Especially the apprehension side of it, that takes a special dog because it’s not common practice for a dog to engage a human being and bite a human being. Most of that is done out of fear.”

SPD’s dogs have all been bred, trained and imported from Europe.

“They have no fear,” Surface said. “These dogs come here and they are not afraid of anything, so they feel like in every situation that they are going to come out winners because that’s how they’ve been trained: ‘You do win. No matter how we set this training up, you’re going to win.’”

In Ace’s career, Surface said he was responsible for hundreds of arrests not only for SPD but other agencies.

“Those dogs protect not only other officers and civilians in certain situations, but that dog is trained to protect me or any handler,” he said. “At the same time, we have to protect that dog by not sending it into certain situations. It makes that bond really, really tight. … That bond is incredible, and it’s the comfort of being on a call by yourself and know that if I had to get my dog out that I felt 100% sure that he would give his life to protect me.”

Surface said he never has to worry about a dog not wanting to work.

“You never open the door and him be like, ‘Well, I just don’t want to do that today,’” he said. “He’s always ready. He’s always ready to give 110%. … Nothing bothers them like what things do in our personal lives. That dog is just ready to go. At the end of the day, if people would just pay more attention to their pets and learn from them, this world, I think, would be in a lot different direction than what it is right now.”

Over the years, Surface and Ace also enjoyed visiting schools, churches and nursing homes to visit with people and do demonstrations.

“For people to be able to come out and pet the dog, people may not like police officers, but everybody likes dogs,” he said, smiling.

He hopes to start doing that again with Nash. That 2½-year-old dog is Surface’s personal dog and is contracted to the city when he’s working, while Niko and Ace were purchased by the city. Niko retired in 2013 due to a hip issue and now lives with one of Surface’s friends.

Sgt. Brian Moore and Officer Samuel Hughes are SPD’s other K-9 officers.

”We currently have another dog here now we just got last week, and then we’re getting another dog very shortly,” Surface said.