PAWS FOR RECOGNITION
Rusty the airport sniffer dog retires
After a decade of protecting Canada’s border, 11-year-old beagle Rusty is hanging up his sniffer.
His successful career as a detector dog with the Canadian Border Services Agency resulted in over 7,000 seizures and was responsible for finding $187,000 of undeclared currency, issuing $ 400,000 in monetary penalties and discovering 120 kg of narcotics.
But Rusty couldn’t have done it without his career-long partner and handler Laura Hiscott.
“He’s been the best partner,” she said. “It’s hard to see him go. It’s bittersweet. But, he’s certainly worked hard and deserves this retirement.”
Their dynamic partnership began in 2007, when Rusty was rescued from the Montreal Humane Society at eight months old.
“We’ve spent every day together, working and not working, for the last 10 years and that’s not going to change now,” she said.
Although Rusty is leaving his lifelong job, he’s not leaving Hiscott, who’s adopting him into her family. She said his retired life will involve lounging on the couch and going to horse shows — a welcomed, and relaxing, change from Rusty’s normal routine.
Hiscott described his job as a constant game of hide and go seek.
“We use that strong hunting and prey drive that these dogs have and train them on odours we want them to find,” she said. “He can do a search in minutes that would take a lot of officers hours.”
Of the thousands of items con- fiscated in the Calgary airport, the weirdest item Rusty found was a bottle of dead baby birds in someone’s suitcase, said Hiscott. The birds are part of a Lebanese delicacy, but could have left Canadians vulnerable to disease.