RCMP - TRAINED CANINE HAS A NOSE FOR HELPING PEOPLE

After a hard day at the office, there's nothing Atar likes better than
a home-cooked meal.

"You should see him eat. You'd think he never knew where his next meal
is coming from," says Atar's handler, Banff park warden Mike Henderson.

Atar, a four-year-old German shepherd, is a Parks Canada service dog,
used mainly for search and rescue and public safety. But as an
RCMP-trained police dog, Atar is also capable of sniffing out narcotics.

Often called out to assist the RCMP on drug searches, Atar has also
been used to search school lockers for narcotics -- two duties that
may be severely restricted following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling
Friday.

The court, in a 6-3 decision, said enforcement agencies cannot use
sniffer dogs for random searches in public places, including schools,
parks, malls and bus terminals. At issue is whether the use of
scent-tracking dogs constitutes an invasion of privacy that violates
protections in the charter of rights against unreasonable search and
seizure.

Legal experts for police forces and organizations like the Canadian
Customs and Revenue Agency were scrambling Friday to interpret the
decision. It was unclear if airport searches, with their higher level
of security, are affected. The Calgary Police Service says the ruling
has no impact on its operations because it uses sniffer dogs only when
permitted to do so by a search warrant.

Henderson is uncertain what the ruling means for Atar. He hadn't seen
the decision because both were out on a three-hour ski patrol to check
snowpack conditions in the backcountry of Banff.

"He just tailed along and got some serious exercise," Henderson said
of his incredibly fit canine partner. "He needs to be out and put in
those long travel days so he can get to site and still work."

Henderson and his dogs, including the now-retired Attila, have been
involved in hundreds of searches, including the search after the
tragic avalanche in the Rogers Pass that killed seven students from
Calgary's Strathcona-Tweedsmuir in February 2003. The previous year,
Henderson and Atilla responded to 22 avalanche calls. This past
season, which is not over, is one of the worst avalanche seasons on
record.

Henderson and Atar were also used to search for survivors in the
mangled wreck of five semi-trailer trucks that crashed Jan. 31 near
Lake Louise, killing three people.

As difficult as those situations are, Henderson says drug searches
pose peculiar problems.

"When you go to wrecks, they're usually pretty bad. From a narcotics
standpoint, some of the houses we search are fairly difficult. If
you're a crack user, you really don't get the vacuum cleaner out every
day. The environment you search in, it's astounding what you can find
in there."

Atar was trained at the RCMP Police Service Dog Training Centre,
located between Bowden and Innisfail. The RCMP dog training program
dates back to 1935, when dogs were used for mostly for tracking people
and searching hidden stills and caches of illegal liquor.

Today, some dogs specialize in searching for drugs, agriculture
products, even corpses. Dogs like Atar, known as general duty dogs,
are used in a variety of situations.

"Parks Canada's primary mandate with these dogs is public safety,"
Henderson says. "Parks Canada has a really strong reputation in terms
of its rescue capability and we're part of that. Helping the RCMP is
rewarding. We rely on those guys a lot and if we can give something
back, it's great."

Like all RCMP service dogs, Atar comes from the Czech
Republic.

"They are just really good blood lines for a working dog," Henderson
says.

Highly trained, fit and outwardly gentle, Atar can be aggressive in
taking down a bad guy and will defend his handler if Henderson is ever
attacked.

"He has a really strong bite," Henderson says. "That's the only thing
they know when they leave the old country."