Five Days in Kelowna, The Canadian Police Canine Championship 2014
Tuesday, September 9th:
It is Tuesday night, and I am packing up my suitcase getting
ready to go to Kelowna for the Canadian Police Canine Championship (CPCA). As I
am getting ready, my daughter, who is just weeks away from turning three, is
also getting a bag packed and ready to go to Nana’s house for a sleepover. I
will be leaving at the crack of dawn the next day and my wife is also working a
day shift. The little one tells me that she wants me to pack something of hers
to bring to Kelowna with me, so she gets me her favorite item in the world....
a stick from our front yard that she has brought inside from one of our many
excursions to the park. I laugh, that out of the dozen toys and stuffed animals
she has, she chooses a stick, I of course pack it and take it with me to
Kelowna, and maybe it will be my lucky stick.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014:
Five in the morning is when I wake up in order to get loaded
and make the first ferry from Victoria to Vancouver, starting the journey to
Kelowna. As I am clearing the fog in my head, I get PSD Diesel out of his
kennel, let him out for a nature break and feed him breakfast. He is wide
awake, running, jumping, and whining in excitement. He has no idea where we are
going, or what we are doing, he is just happy to be going in the truck and
hopefully getting to work. He could really teach me a thing or two about waking
up in the morning.
Diesel and I head to Cst. Ewer’s house to load up PSD Diesel
into a kennel in the back of a dog truck with PSD Bondo riding in the main
kennel and head out to the ferry. Sorry to Cst. Ewer’s neighbours for the
barking in the morning, Bondo and Diesel were just excited to see each other.
As we arrive at the ferry, there are a lot of tired eyes and
coffees being consumed in the line-up. No one more tired than Cst. McLeod and
PSD Uno who had just worked all night and had drove straight from work to the
ferry. It is decided that I will drive Cst. McLeod and Uno to Kelowna to allow
them to sleep.
After a four-plus hour drive, with a brief pit stop at the
Tourist information centre in Merritt B.C. (where I highly recommend you try
the samosas) we arrive in Kelowna. The parking lot is loaded with police dog
vehicles from all over B.C and Alberta. Hopefully the other guests at the hotel
like dogs, because when one started barking in the parking lot they all started
barking.
The first night is a meet and great with all the other
handlers from across the country. I learn that we will be competing against
teams from: Calgary, Edmonton, Medicine Hat, Regina, Vancouver, Saanich and the
RCMP. Further there are teams from CBSA and both federal and provincial
corrections that will be competing in either drug or bomb detection.
The next day will be the CPCA annual general meeting as well
as team bonding activities with the competition starting on Friday.
Friday, September 12, 2014:
Friday morning has arrived and Diesel and I start with the
tracking competition. To say I was nervous this morning would be an
understatement. Diesel and I have put in countless hours training for tracking
as I believe it is the bread and butter of what a police dog team do. As a K9
team you are usually called to a scene for wanted people, or a high risk
missing person or child and all eyes are on you and your dog to locate them.
Now I am at a competition being judged on those hours and
hours of training, knowing that Diesel and I have only been on the road since this
past January, and we are competing against teams that have three to five years
of service under their belts.
While we are driving to the venue I am tempted to give
Diesel a pep talk, I bounce back and forth between putting on the Rocky
soundtrack, or quoting some lines from movies but as I look back at him pacing
in the kennel of the dog truck I know he is ready to go; just as he is always
ready to go. Now that I have checked my nerves we roll up to the tracking venue
for our 10:40 a.m. start time. I’m ready to get the dog out of the truck and
track, only to be told there is a delay and we have to wait… time for the
nerves to come back. Now that I have to wait, I check my pocket to ensure that
I have my lucky stick with me.
Almost two hours later I am on the field with Diesel and
ready to go. I put him in his harness, put his tracking line on and assist him
out of the truck. We walk to the judges to get our instructions.
Although I’m
nervous, I can assure you Diesel is not. He is pulling like a mad man to get on
the field. He’s jumping, barking, whining. He knows we are at the tracking
field and he knows what we are there to do. We get our start point and off we
go! Diesel is pulling hard into the track and I’m behind. As the track comes to
an end Diesel is exhausted. It is almost 25 degrees on the field at that time,
and he just worked his butt off. I give him a ton of praise and load him into
the truck for a much needed water break, leaving the field knowing that the
first event is completed, but that I will have to wait till Sunday to find out
how we did. I started the dog course with Diesel in September 2013 and one year
later I am still in awe of his ability to track.
That afternoon it is onto a building search scenario. The scenario
is that an office building has been broken into and that the suspect, or
suspects, is still inside. It is a judged event and we only have 15 minutes to
search the entire building. Diesel locates two “suspects” hiding in the
building by sitting outside of the closed doors they are hiding behind and
barking. I bring Diesel back to me and call out the suspects who are taken out
of the building by the judges. Diesel and I also located a weapon inside the
building and conclude the scenario.
We made it through day one.
Saturday, September 13
Day two consists of an evidence search scenario in the morning
and a compound search in the afternoon. The evidence search is in a massive
towing yard and the scenario is that you are called to the scene of a violent
crime and you need to located a piece, or pieces, of evidence… and of course
you only have ten minutes to do it. After a frantic search around cars, a rusted
old truck, some prickle pushes, boats and boat trailers, Diesel locates one
piece of evidence. I have no idea if there was more, and if there was more, how
many more, but we walk back to the truck knowing that we found one piece and we
had a desire to do better in the afternoon.
The afternoon is a compound search scenario. Similar to the
building search scenario, a compound has been broken into by an unknown number
of suspects and they are still within the scenario. After searching for almost 15 minutes Diesel
locates two suspects and two weapons associated to the suspects and we call it
a day.
After two successful days at the competition, Sunday brings
the public day, where people from Kelowna come to watch you and your dog work.
Sunday, September 14:
Public day starts at seven in the morning with a breakfast for
the handlers and judges at the Apple Bowl Stadium. Public day was broken down
into three events: Obedience, Agility, and Criminal Apprehension. It was a
beautiful day in Kelowna and I expected the crowd to be good for the event, but
the community of Kelowna amazed me. The rough estimate is that between 4000 and
5000 people attended the public day event. It was fantastic to see them all
there in the stadium supporting us and donating to the BC Children’s Hospital.
Diesel and I were in the second group of five dog teams with PSD Bondo and PSD
Uno.
The event started with our obedience routine. It is one
thing to head to a school field and do obedience with your dog with no one
watching. It is a bit more nerve racking when 5000 people are watching you and
your dog work. The routine was a bunch of turns, long sits, long downs, recalling
the dog and retrieving a reward. Diesel did amazing and I was a very proud dog
dad. It was then on to the agility course.
The agility course was comprised of the following obstacles:
a tunnel, a table top the dog had to go under, a 5-foot fence, a tire to jump
through, a dog walk balance beam and barrels to jump over. Things started well
with Diesel going through the tunnel and under the table top. We got to the
fence and he looked at me, his eyes saying, “why would I go over top of this
when I could just run around it?” I can’t say I blame him for looking for the
quickest way through the course, but as we are a team I lifted him up and over
the fence. The rest of the routine went well and we finished it with smiles on
our faces and a wave to the crowd as they enjoyed watching Diesel work as much
as I do.
The crowd loved watching the Criminal Apprehension portion
of the day. The crowd was able to see a dog stop on a dime and lay down from a
full sprint when directed by their handler; this is prior to making contact
with the suspect. They also got to see a dog advance on a violent suspect who
had just fired a blank gun in their hand. All dogs did very well in all
scenarios, Diesel included.
After the public day was the awards banquet, where you
finally get to see how you did in your events. You also get to see if you won a
medal, as they are given out to the top five finishers in each scenario. I went
to the dog trials to get some experience and to take myself out of my comfort
zone and to allow Diesel and I to grow as a team. I knew we would be up against
some amazing teams from across the country so I knew competition to finish in
the top five of any profile would be tough.
All Victoria Police dogs did amazing at the trials.
All three of us placed in the top five in Criminal
Apprehension, with Cst Ewer and Bondo 2nd, Cst McLeod and Uno 3RD
and Diesel and I 5th.
Cst McLeod and Uno won the obedience profile and finished 5th
in the evidence search.
Diesel and I finished 5th in tracking.
Further, Cst. McLeod and Uno finished second overall for
entire competition right behind the eventual winner, Cst. Zielinski and PSD
Zeke from our neighbours to the north, the Saanich Police.
The results show the time and effort the entire Victoria
Police K9 Unit puts into training these dogs.
We all help each other throughout our time in the unit, and to be
rewarded for the hard work is nice.
The entire competition was a great experience, Diesel and I
learned a lot, and look forward to entering another competition in the future,
in hopes on improving our results.