By Sam Borsato - @BorsatoSam on Twitter

Unprecedented program training Canadian police dogs to detect fentanyl

Feb 6, 2017 | 11:16 AM

CANADA – Police dogs have now joined the RCMP’s critical fight against fentanyl.

The training program started in Innisfail, Alberta in April of 2016. Three of the initial dog teams have already reported a lot of success in a short amount of time. One seized around 12,000 pills in British Columbia.

Insp. Akrum Ghadban, officer in charge of RCMP police dog services, spoke with Lethbridge News Now and went over how the training process works.
 
“It’s the same as we do with any other odour. The only danger is with fentanyl, it’s so volatile that we have to ensure that the dogs can’t access it. We had to make sure that we synthesized it into a liquid form where airborne particles couldn’t affect the dogs.”
 
Ghadban says the program has been fine tuned now, and another group is expected to graduate this month. One of the dogs will be heading to northern Alberta, and another will be sent to Manitoba.
 
“Our goal here is to save lives. The more fentanyl we take off the streets, the more lives were going to save,” Ghadban continued.
 
“We have 139 narcotics profile dogs across Canada, so all of our dogs will be trained to be able to detect fentanyl… I know there’s a lot of international interest in what we’re doing because I don’t know any other police force in the world that’s been able to work with pure fentanyl, and synthesize it into a form where it’s safe for the dogs to train on.”
 
All RCMP dogs are expected to be fully trained by mid-July 2017.