K9 Unit takes centre stage at SACPA to explain what’s behind Lethbridge’s Finest and Furriest

“So, for us to come to a setting like this and everybody gets to see and learn about the K9 Unit and what we really do usually when people are sleeping at night, it’s a good thing.”

DeMone started off with Arco in 2011 and is now coming up on seven years of working alongside the Belgian Malinois, on the streets of Lethbridge.

“We should have about another year left, and then he’ll be retired,” DeMone added.

Agility, obedience, tracking, building searches, compound/area searches, evidence searches, criminal apprehension and drug detection are the main components of training a Police Service Dog for the Lethbridge Police Service.

They provide an element to police work that you can’t get anywhere else and, in some cases, the PSDs have the first interaction with subjects engaging in criminal activity, taking on a dangerous role for their human partners.

DeMone says the biggest thing they bring is their sense of smell, and that’s what they use and get them to harness, to be able to use it to the best of their abilities.

“To be able to track somebody for example just by following the odour they’ve left behind after they’ve run away, I don’t know of any of our police officers who could get down on the ground and try to smell the sidewalk and figure out where people have gone. Building clearing and area clearing by using wind and odour and things like that to keep officers safe. We need to harness that because unless they come out with a robot that does that, we’ll have to rely on these dogs for it,” DeMone said.

It’s not an easy process to get involved with the K9 Unit, as you have to dedicate personal time to take training courses while still operating a normal officer’s job. Once you’ve done enough of that, it’s months and months worth of training, as DeMone said it was about four months that he was together training with Arco before hitting the streets.

“When the dogs are new, they are secluded from the world in a lot of ways because we want to build up their drive so when they go to work, they just want to work as hard as they can,” he continued. “When they’re new, if you bring them in the house all the time as you would with a normal dog, it’s still a dog, and its focus will turn to that.”

DeMone says starting off it’s always important to give them attention, and be their source or fun, or else when you open the kennel to go to work, they’re going to want to lay on the couch.

“That fun comes in the form of work, we do obedience and play games and stuff at home to keep that drive high. As we’ve gotten further along into our careers, and Arco kind of knows what he’s doing, I’m able to know when he’s in that mode.”

When he first got started, DeMone said he didn’t know just how deep the relationship was going to be, but he was basically given an animal that was his and solely his.

“That dog relies on you for everything in life from food to affection to everything. He and I are together every single day, with the exception of the odd time I go away on holidays and we get the other handlers to watch him.

“I’ve been with that dog every single day basically since 2011 and going through the next year. The things you go through with each other, the way you’re able to communicate with each other without even saying words just body language, it’s pretty incredible,” DeMone stated.

DeMone and Arco have been involved in a ton of stuff over the years, from some high-risk tactical calls to just little things like showing up at a scene to keep the peace.

“The most memorable thing that comes to mind was in my second year when we had someone kick in the door of an elderly lady who had just lost her husband,” he explained. “She was 90 years old living by herself for the first time, and to be able to track that subject for over two kilometres and identify him to bring some closure to that lady was probably one of the most memorable things I’ve done.”

Anyone paying attention in recent months may have noticed the number of times that the K9 Unit has been involved in finding perpetrators and bringing them to justice. DeMone says things haven’t really changed too much day to day but added they’re certainly busy.

“The K9 Unit in Lethbridge has been around for 54 years now, and in my seven years here I’ve noticed we’ve just been busier, and busier, and busier. As the city gets bigger and bigger it starts to get more vibrant, so we’re getting used more and more in those high-profile cases,” DeMone said, adding because the dog has something to bring to the table it helps conclude the file a little quicker sometimes.

The way they deal with drugs has also changed, what with marijuana becoming legal and the frequency of substance type drugs in the community. Recent K9 Unit recruits like PSD Myke and Robby weren’t even trained to sniff for marijuana, and DeMone says they’re very cautious where they choose to put their dogs now.

“There’s a big difference between a vehicle that comes over the border and has a bunch of drugs that are packaged up and sealed than searching a random vehicle in the city. We’re very careful not to put our dogs into vehicles where users are driving them where crack cocaine, meth, fentanyl or needles that could be present. We really need to do thorough checks first.”

The City of Lethbridge paid around $10,000 for Arco, according to DeMone, and they’ll also cover a canine pension, as DeMone described it, after Arco retires, which will cover dog food and veterinarian work.

“I’ve started to get him prepped for retirement where I do bring him in the house in the winter time, and doing stuff normal dogs do,” DeMone continued. “So that when we are done next year, he’s able to integrate into that kind of lifestyle and be able to live in my house and things like that.”

by Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

K9 Unit takes centre stage at SACPA to explain what’s behind Lethbridge’s Finest and Furriest

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