Orange : Star Drug Investigator Performs for Governor

Tail wagging, a dog named Winston received a large bone trimmed with a green ribbon from Gov. George Deukmejian at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Training Facility in Orange Wednesday.

Winston, a 5-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, has been trained to detect narcotics. In his two years on the sheriff’s narcotics team, he has participated in seizures of illegal drugs totaling $16.8 million, Sheriff Brad Gates said.

As Deukmejian, Gates and 200 others watched, Winston went through his paces at the training facility, sniffing out a briefcase full of cocaine from five other cases, striking it several times with his paw.

After the demonstration, Deukmejian, conceding that he is not really a Labrador man--he owns three beagles--congratulated Winston and the dog’s handler, Investigator Don Lambert. He also praised the efforts of the Sheriff’s Department Advisory Council, a 400-member volunteer group that bought Winston for the department and has helped in other ways, including providing bulletproof vests to the deputies.

During the daylong visit to Orange County that the governor’s aides said was not part of his reelection effort, Deukmejian was interviewed on television station KOCE in Huntington Beach, gave a luncheon speech to the Orange County Federation of Republican Women and delivered an evening speech to the Industrial League of Orange County.