Guilty, like many Belleville residents, has strong ties to Germany, where he was born and partially trained.

Residents might see the 128-pound Guilty searching for drugs, sniffing the trail of a bad guy on the loose, performing canine demonstrations or just out getting some exercise.

“He’s social. He’s almost like a jokester,” Dowdy described his partner. “He’s a little bull headed, like sometimes you have to motivate him to do things if he doesn’t feel like he wants to do them. He’ll just sit down and look at you sometimes.”

Dowdy, 40, is an animal lover who always wanted to train police dogs . . .

In December, after a retail theft was reported at Kmart, Guilty “ran a track” and located the suspect, Dowdy said.