Retirement, graduation day for LPS K9 Unit members
Lethbridge police officially recognized the careers of two retiring members of their K9 Unit and celebrated the graduation of their replacements on Friday.
The ceremony involved badge presentations to Myke and Robby — with their respective handlers, Const. Braylon Hyggen and Const. Andrew Firby — and recognizing the work of Const. Ryan Kiddine and PSD Figo, and Const. Mike Darby and PSD Ivo as the dogs have now retired from active duty in the K9 Unit.
Figo and Ivo were responsible for the arrests of hundreds of suspects in drug and evidence searches during their careers.
Ivo graduated in June 2009. He is the 24th police dog in LPS history to be retired.
Highlights of his career include tracking and locating a suspect who had assaulted a fellow (human) officer.
He is considered an escape artist, and twice escaped from his secure kennel — once during a training session, where he interrupted another dog’s compound search, and once when he ran around the Vancouver harbour until he found Darby, his handler.
Vigo graduated in December 2009, and is the 25th police dog in LPS history to be retired.
Highlights of his career include placing second in tracking at the 2013 Canadian Police Canine Association trials, an annual event involving K9 Units from across the country.
Vigo is an excellent family dog and has a very social disposition.
Over 16 weeks, the new dogs were trained in tracking, obedience, agility, building searches, compound and area searches, evidence searches, criminal apprehension, and drug detection. All LPS service dogs are dual-purpose animals — they are trained to track, search and apprehend, as well as drug detection.
Myke and Robby have been in action for about one month. Myke is the 28th LPS service dog and has shown significant improvements in agility skills during his training.
He has earned the nickname “The Cat” because his disposition is unlike most dogs in that instead of asking what he can do to help, he often looks at his handler as if to ask, “What can you do for me?”
Myke is considered a very calm dog and is comfortable in all situations. His very first shift was a success, according to Hyggen. He and Myke participated in a search warrant and Myke was able to use his training to detect drugs.
“That first day, it was great to see all this come around, and his training paid off,” said Hyggen. Robby is the 29th LPS service dog. He has shown strong improvements in his ability to track subjects during the course of his training.
When Robby locates someone in a building or compound, he looks at his handler, Firby, as if to say, “Oh my God, Dad! You’re not going to believe this, but there’s a guy in here!”
Robby is an energetic and motivated dog who is quick to learn. His high level of drive makes him easy to teach new skills.
He is also the most social dog on the service, which will be a big asset for Firby when dealing with members of the public.
Hyggen said the badge presentation has been a long time coming, and training was a learning experience for both himself and for Myke.
“We started in September,” he said. “It was a different pace. Monday to Friday, and a lot of work for me to learn. It wasn’t just the dog learning behaviour. It was me learning to teach him as well.”
Hyggen said the dogs play a vital role to the community through how they can assist police in doing their jobs.
“It’s something were, example, we have a break and enter, and somebody leaves, and nobody knows who it is. If we are there, we can track to the person and identify who it was using the dogs,” he said.