NATCHEZ — K-9 officers have a mantra that they repeat over and over.

“Trust your dog,” said Brian Seyfarth, a Natchez Police Department K-9 officer and trainer of the K-9, Arco.

“On a track, the dog sometimes doesn’t go where you think they should go, but they know better than you,” said Tony Godbold, Brian’s fellow K-9 officer and trainer of Cyrax.

That trust extends into every area of a K-9 officer’s life as they spend more time with their dog than they do with anyone else.

And they train tirelessly to keep that trust, which is not easy to come by when you are just starting out with a 100-plus pound German shepherd that does not hesitate to attack aggressors.

Cyrax is Tony’s first K-9, and getting him was a dream come true.

“Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a K-9 officer,” he said.

Tony’s father, Natchez Police Department Lt. Craig Godbold, was the department’s first K-9 officer.

“There weren’t a lot of other kids around, so I grew up with Wondo (his father’s K-9),” Tony said. “I would go into the yard and play with him for hours.”

So when Tony joined the NPD, there was only one job he wanted to earn, so he shadowed Seyfarth.

Seyfarth had recently gotten Arco, which was his second K-9. Seyfarth raised the money to buy Arco himself after not having a dog for several years following the death of his first dog.

“I was a K-9 officer, but I didn’t have a dog,” Seyfarth said. “There was a huge piece of my job that was missing.”

So when Tony started, Seyfarth and Arco were still getting to know each other.

“I would go training with them,” Tony said. “I would plant narcotics for Arco to find. I would be the suspect trying to evade police and Arco would chase me.”

“I loved it.”

After a couple years of training and following a money seizure that NPD made with Metro Narcotics, it was Tony’s turn to get a dog, and he chose Cyrax, who was less than a year old.

And just as Tony grew up with Wondo, Cyrax grew up with Tony.

“I could watch Brian and Arco all I wanted,” Tony said. “But when I was at K-9 Unlimited of Tulsa (a camp specifically for the training of K-9 officers) I had no idea what I was doing.”

In July 2013, after 120 hours of training, Tony and Cyrax were certified in all six of the K-9 officer criteria, obedience, article search, tracking, building search, aggression control and narcotic detection.

Since then, their relationship has only grown. Cyrax lives at home with Tony just as Arco lives at home with Brian.

Tony completely trusts Cyrax around his three-year-old daughter Eden.

“He is apart of the family,” Tony said.