St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Deputy 1st Class Scott Winthers and his K-9 partner Gaston had no time to react. In a moment, instinctual training had kicked in.

The team, one of eight such K-9 dog teams with the Sheriff’s Office, were in a Folsom home last April looking for a lone burglar somewhere in hiding.

Suddenly the suspect lunged out from a closed laundry room door, his raised hands clutching a pair of pruning shears that he stabbed downward against Winther’s Kevlar vest. Without hesitation Gaston snarled and leaped forward, clamping down on the man’s arm with his teeth. The move gave Winthers enough time to draw his gun and pull the trigger.

Shown, Sheriff'��s Office Deputy 1st Class Scott Winthers and his canine partner, Gaston, recently received national recognition as '��Team of the Year'�� by '��Police K-9'�� magazine.

Seven shots pierced the night silence. The burglar was dead.

“That dog actually saved my life,” Winthers said this week, looking back. “He gave me enough time to allow me to step back and do what I had to do.”

While considered a tragic turn of events, Winthers’ crime fighting brethren have praised his quick reaction. Now eight months later, Winthers and Gaston are being recognized nationally.

Denver, Colo.-based “Police K-9” magazine, an industry trade periodical, chose Winthers and Gaston, a Belgian Shepherd dog, as the nation’s “Team of the Year,” the magazine’s most esteemed award for a dog/handler team.

More than 100 people were nominated worldwide for the award, but Winthers and Gaston went “above and beyond” the call of duty, said Jeff Myer, the magazine’s publisher.

“There is a very good likelihood that if the team didn’t do what they did a deputy may have been hurt or killed,” Myer said.

Myer will accept the award in Louisville, Ky., during the magazine’s annual law enforcement seminar April 20-23, Myer said.

“It was an honor,” Winthers said recalling when he heard the news. “I was very happy. It was the pinnacle. I was shocked.”

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Cpl. James Lyle nominated Winthers.

“The events that look place that evening all fell back to training,” Lyle said. “We didn’t want it to end like that, but the perpetrator made the decision for us.”

Gaston, a Malinois breed, is worth between $30,000 and $40,000 because of his experience on the streets.

“It’s just like experience for a street deputy, the more you have the more money they are worth,” Lyle said.