OPP dogs have different kinds of jobs

Not all canine helpers are tasked with apprehending fleeing criminals

Police dogs have a reputation of taking down dangerous criminals escaping justice, momentarily disabling them until officers arrive, but what many people might not know is there are several other service dogs assisting in other aspects of everyday police service life.

The Ontario Provincial Police has used dogs since 1965, when the general service dog, typically a German shepherd, was introduced to frontline support services.

Since then, the Ontario Provincial Police have introduced many service dog positions specializing in aspects including search and rescue, human remains detection and explosives detection.

Search and rescue service dogs start their training at between 18 and 24 months old and can serve between nine and 11 years depending on their health.

With about 26 service dog handlers throughout the province, 24 of them have both a general service dog and a detection dog.

Stella, a seven-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever, and her handler John King, an Ontario Provincial Police constable who also has a general service dog, provide search and rescue service in Peterborough County, the City of Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton County.

The duo help find people lost in the wilderness and other missing people, including those disoriented either from a mental illness like Alzheimer’s disease or by hypothermia or heat exhaustion.

“These dogs are trained to pretty much the same standard as our general service dogs, however, there’s no apprehension component to them,” King said.

“Most often we use labs for this role, because of their high drive, they’re easily trainable, their willingness to work in accordance with their training standards, and they have track and search capabilities.”

When dogs like Stella are released and locate a missing party, they will stay with them and bark to alert their handlers of their success.

Unlike general service dogs, search and rescue dogs do not have the criminal apprehension role that their counterparts do.

“The biggest advantage to this

profile in a dog is there is no fear of any contact at the end,” he said.

King notes search and rescue dogs, despite living with their handlers, are not pets, due to being wired differently.

“We capitalize on that, and we take advantage of their drive to work, and we use their motivation, so these dogs come with a very high drive, and they want to please,” King said.

King adds a dog like Stella has the capacity to search a large area faster than about 15 searchers, and with an abundance of success.

Constantly training Stella, King works on sharpening her strengths and weaknesses even on off days, whether it is throwing a ball to keep her searching skills sharp or obedience training, she is always working on something, even if disguised as something fun.

“It’s my duty to train the dogs and keep them up to speed and make sure they can recertify and requalify on a yearly basis,” he said. “Every time you exercise them, it’s an opportunity to sharpen something, whether it’s obedience, recall, or hunting, we go to a park, and I throw a ball into a wooded area, they search for it, it’s fun for them, but it’s also a little bit of training.”

King recalls a recent success when he and Stella were called to find a missing mother and child in Minden, who got turned around and were later found in a swampy bog at the back of the property after sunset suffering from hypothermia.

Stella found them and started barking, but due to the swamp, she could not get to them, King recalled.

“She (the mother) was almost waist deep into a boggy swamp, holding her three-year-old child, hypothermic, but very happy to see us,” he said.

“That was probably one of the better ones.”