FIGHTING CRIME A DOGGED EFFORT FOR TEAM

At first glance, Jax seems like a regular dog. As he ran and chased the
Williams' family dog in their backyard last week, he seemed like a big
puppy who lives to play and please.

But Jax was only allowed to play with the dog that one day because his
kennel was packed in a moving truck destined for Surrey, B.C.

Make no mistake: Jax is police dog. At almost two-years-old, he can track
when there are no tracks to be seen, and sniff out narcotics like he is
commanded to find a delicious dinner of beef jerky. He has to, or else he
and his handler, Const. Chris Williams, wouldn't have graduated from the
RCMP Police Dog Training Centre in Innisfail, Alta., this past February.
Over the past four months, Williams and Jax have been working out of
Lloydminster awaiting their transfer to Surrey - a temporary deal that has
resulted countless drug seizures, among other policing successes.

Because of its position on the Yellowhead Highway between Edmonton and
Saskatoon, Lloydminster is the halfway point for drug trafficking, said
Williams. He called it the gateway for drug traffickers into Saskatchewan
and thinks Lloydminster and area needs a police dog team - and other
members agree.

Jax and Williams tracked a car thief, who ditched a stolen car after a high
speed chase, through thick bush and deep snow north of St. Paul for an hour
and 35 minutes. Williams thinks without Jax, police would have tracked the
individual for far longer, maybe even to no avail.

And it may have been a traffic stop in Maidstone with no charges laid last
month, but Jax found the five pounds of marijuana hidden in the spare tire
of the vehicle.

"There's so much dope going down this highway, it's ridiculous - like
pounds and pounds every day but we're starting to take more of it off the
road," said Williams. "The amount of drugs that are coming into the
community would probably stagger most people. There's a lot that goes
undetected. It's a growing problem, and the dog is just one more tool that
can find those responsible and bring them before the courts."

Since February, the team has attended 90 calls, the majority of which were
in the city. Williams maintains a police dog team can, in most cases,
capture a culprit quicker with less of a risk to human life.

There is such a need for a police dog in the area, Cpl. Brain Burke, a
police dog handler in North Battleford, put a submission to the RCMP
Division Executive Committee in Regina for the Lloydminster and area to get
its own police dog services unit.

But that team comes with a higher price tag for a division already
struggling to maintain resources. But Williams thinks the benefits must be
paramount. A police dog can save a life. How do you put a price on that?
Especially in a place like Lloydminster, which he said has a growing drug
problem. And with drugs, comes other acts of crime.

"We could also easily support a dedicated drug unit here. There's that much
drugs. I know of probably 15 coke traffickers in town," he said. "Every
armed robbery we had last year was directly attributed to methamphetamine.
I don't think everyone is fully aware how bad the drug problem is."

Williams has been working towards being a police dog handler since he first
entered the force. While he was in Kamsack, Sask., the Stanley Mission
First Nation Policing Unit, then at the Lloydminster detachment, he raised
and quarried three puppies for other handlers - a requirement to be
admitted in the RCMP Police Dog Training Centre.

This meant he had to drive sometimes hundreds of kilometres to other police
dog units in Saskatchewan on his days off and on weekend to work under
other handlers. That time was voluntary, unpaid, with no reimbursement for
expenses.

But countless hours of acting as a crook, laying out hides, training and
socializing puppies, as well as performing well in assessments, paid off
for Williams.

RCMP police dog services is not an easy section to get into. There are only
120 police dog service teams in Canada and of the approximate 100 members
on the list hoping to be admitted into the training centre (there is only
one centre in Canada), only seven or eight members are selected each year.

Williams got the call last July and began his training in August. Moreover,
the little German shepherd, who came to him from the Czech Republic and who
Williams trained since he was nine-weeks-old, turned out to be an excellent
candidate for training. Even though he was only 13-months-old at the time,
Jax was well socialized, tested well on aggression, and had already started
some obedience and tracking training. Williams and Jax were a match.

About 85 training days later, the twosome graduated and were ready for the
field, a feat considering some members go through five or six dogs and a
year-and-a-half of training to find an acceptable dog that can graduate.
"We were lucky. We got through with one dog the first time, just over the
85 days. Things went pretty smooth for us," said Williams, adding the dogs
must be proficient in all of the profiles, like tracking and searching, for
them to graduate.

In fact, even the dogs that end up being unacceptable for the RCMP become
highly-valued working dogs for other North American police forces and the
military, he said.

Learning to read the dog, who "doesn't really make mistakes," was the
biggest challenge in training. But now, Williams is very good at
interpreting Jax's indications.

"There are so many subtle things and every dog is different. You really
have to develop a good bond with your dog, appreciate that they are an
animal and just like us, they have good days and bad days and sometimes you
just have to roll with the punches," he said. "You're not going to catch
every bad guy, you're not going to find drugs on every search but you have
to stay positive and encourage them and work together as a team. That's how
you're going to get the successes."

And during the short time they were here, Williams and Jax were busy. The
team responded to calls in Lac La Biche, Turtleford, Loon Lake, Pelican
Narrows, La Loche, North Battleford, Kerrobert, Willow Bunch as well as
many areas in the Midwest. Not to mention Lloydminster, which has profited
greatly from the team, even though Williams wasn't technically a part of
the detachment's strength over the past four months.

At the Williams' home, Jax is kept in a kennel and is not a

llowed to interact with family or other pets in a play environment. "For
him, his fun and pleasure comes from working and getting praise from me.
And he loves to go to work. He knows when I come around the corner with my
uniform on, I let him out and I go, 'let's go to work,' he bolts for the
fence, goes right to the truck and is sitting and ready to go," he said.
"And he'll whine. If he knows we're going to something, he'll be whining."
There are only four RCMP dogs in Saskatchewan, 11 in Alberta, and 70 in
B.C. In Surrey, where armed robberies and break and enters in progress are
a daily occurrence, there are nine RCMP police dog teams just in the city
alone.

"In Saskatchewan, the four handlers are basically on-call 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. It's very, very exhausting and hard on their families,"
he said.

So Williams, who's married and has a young son, has resolved to work as a
handler for five to 10 years. He'll also have to decide, if he's still a
handler at the time, whether to leave the section when Jax retires in about
eight years.

Until then, he's excited about his transfer and hopes, maybe one day, to
return to the prairies. Maybe, he said, he'll return to Lloydminster.