DETECTOR DOGS DO DRUG SEARCH

Normally a visit from two dogs wouldn't cause much of a stir at
Vauxhall high school.

But the dogs, 18-month-old black labs Max and Spot, are no ordinary
pups.

The labs visited Vauxhall high school last Thursday with owners Murray
Armstrong and Ken Batty, who together form the company High West K9
Services Ltd. High West, based in Monarch, provides drug search
services through its highly trained dogs.

They were trained in Calgary by Detector Dog Services
International.

Armstrong and Batty provided two presentations for the school's junior
and senior high students, and followed that up with a search of the
building.

"We had the kids in their classrooms for that one period so there
wasn't any kids in the hallways, and I walked with them through the
school and the search went fine, " said VHS principal Johanna Juergensen.

Juergensen spoke to the students before the presentations, outlining
her reasoning for having High West come into the school.

"Like I said to the kids, I want you to understand I don't want this
garbage in the school, and I don't think there is any, but at the same
time I don't want to stick my head in the sand and just say, Ono,
no, no, it's not happening at our school,' because you don't know for
sure," she said.

The principal added she wants to make sure the word gets out that
illegal substances won't be tolerated.

"That's the message I wanted them to get, that it's not OK to have
drugs in school."

High West will be back at VHS in the future, and this time it will be
a surprise.

"They'll be here at least one more time, and then we'll play it by ear
from there," said Juergensen.