Looking for a dog to detect narcotics, explosives, and money plus work avalanche rescue and missing person and/or cadaver rescue? Take a drive to Innisfail, Alberta, Canada where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Dog Services train German Shepherds for Specialty Detection teams. The six-month program teaches K9's how to protect their handlers and themselves, how to understand commands and how to apprehend and search. Each summer the R.C.M.P. holds public shows demonstrating what their
dogs learned. One of the dogs' skills is sniff-searching a car in three minutes!
Canines born at the facility begin training at 12-18 months and about 30 dogs graduate each year. The others are adopted out to families or assigned to other duties with other agencies. The dogs retire between seven and nine years of age.
"Through their incredible sense of smell, our police service dogs have located drugs in schools, bus and train station lockers, and in luggage. They've also found them hidden behind false walls, stashed in automatic washers and dryers, buried beneath ground; and concealed in various areas of automobiles, boats and airplanes," said Staff Sergeant Gary Creed, Senior Trainer at the RCMP Police Dog Service Training Centre. "Criminals' creativity to hide drugs is not a problem for our dogs. If there
are drugs, our dogs find them."
Following are examples of our K9 duties paw-formed by their graduates.
Cpl. Danforth and his dog, Shado, were searching a department store for a burglar. They started in the basement and were on the second floor when Shado began pacing, indicating that he had detected someone. The area was searched but no one was found. Shado remained paws-istant. Even if the humans could not find the intruder he knew there was one, so he stood up pushing his paws against some drapes revealing a false wall with a door. The door was opened and the area visually searched. Empty!
Un-paw-turbed Shado entered and found the hiding culprit. Good job!
Cpl. Gillette and his dog, Pax, were "hunting" for a missing hunter after snow covered all visible tracks. Almost immediately, Pax picked up a trail following the confused hunter who was wandering in circles. After an hour that covered three miles of almost impassable terrain, Pax got his man! The grateful-injured hunter said he'd been in the bush for twelve hours, so Pax finding him so quickly paws-ibly saved his life.
Cpl. Barter and Major II where chasing an escaped convict. Major quickly picked up a track that followed a river bank. The escapee was darting in and out of the woods, but he was no match for Major. Major had been trailing the convict for six hours when the terrain became steep, so he was let off leash. That paw-sistant K9 had climbed from the river's bank to an elevation of 1,300 feet when he veered across a field, entered the woods and disappeared from view.
A few seconds later, he let out a loud yelp. Then silence. Cpl. Barter commanded his dog to return, but Major did not respond. Sprinting forward, the Corporal saw the escapee flee into a densely wooded area and he found Major bleeding on the ground. Then the R.C.M.P. dog stood up, turned and now profusely bleeding from a life-threatening stab wound to his left front shoulder and chest surprised the officer by resuming his pursuit of the suspect.
Shortly after, following Major's blood trail, Cpl. Barter found Major standing guard over the escapee. A helicopter was radioed and to airlift the gravely wounded dog to a Veterinary Hospital. The exam reveled a 3 ½" deep knife wound which had severed Major's jugular vein and a large throat nerve.
How this dedicated dog stood after the attack and continued to "get his man" is a miracle because his chances of survival were slight. Amazingly, after a successful operation, he returned to duty two weeks later.
Yup. Police dogs, anywhere in the world, are amazing!
