Arthritis and injury have forced one of Gwinnett county’s K-9 dogs into retirement after a career of sniffing out drugs and other evidence.

Bella, a 9-year-old Belgian Malinois, retired April 19. She will spend the rest of her life with her longtime partner, Sgt. Christian Adams, and his family.

Bella came to the United States shortly after her birth in Slovakia in 2007. The police department obtained her from Southern Police Canine, a police dog training facility in North Carolina.

Initially, she served as solely as a narcotic-sniffing K9. But Adams trained her in tracking missing people and evidence recovery. Among other things, the county estimates she helped recover nearly $3.5 million in U.S. currency, more than 4,000 pounds of marijuana, 1,048 pounds of methamphetamine, 67 kilograms of cocaine and several dozen guns.

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