CBC News
OTTAWA — Paramedics are often the first people on the scene when a police officer is injured in the line of duty, but if a new program in Ottawa is successful, a group of paramedics will be using their skills to treat injured police dogs as well.
The Ottawa Police Service has 15 dogs in its canine unit. The dogs go through at least four months training to learn how to sniff out missing people, bombs and narcotics, and one Ottawa police officer estimated that each police dog represents an investment of more than $100,000.
To help protect that investment, members of Ottawa’s Paramedic Tactical Unit are going through a two-week veterinary training program that teaches paramedics how to treat police dogs injured on the job.
“There’s a lot of similarities, except they’re down on all fours and we’re standing up,” said Tyler Dearden, a veterinarian at the Alta Vista Animal Hospital who volunteered to teach the program, the first of its kind in Canada.
Valerie Jacques, an Ottawa paramedic who is taking the course, said she hadn’t realized that her skills could be used to help police dogs.
“We’re already there to do medical attention, and when I’ve been through some training, I realized how much dogs are really similar to humans. If unfortunately something has to happen, we’ll be ready,” she said.
Const. Dan Berrea, who works with the Ottawa canine unit, said police dogs are particularly useful at tracking down missing people because their strong sense of smell allows them to cover large areas quickly.
“They’re pretty important when it comes to saving peoples lives,” Berrea said. “When time is of the essence, their abilities are pretty important to us.”
Berrea said dog trainers normally start working with potential police dogs when the dogs are about two years old, adding that it can take years for dogs to hone their skills.
“Although a lot of dogs have a great sense of smell, there’s only very few that are suited to what we do and get very good at the jobs that we ask of them,” Berrea said.
The city hopes to train all of the members of the tactical unit in the coming months.
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Copyright 2010 CBC
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CBC News