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By Joe Fries
If you need further proof that your dog is a lazy lout, look no further than one of the RCMP’s most celebrated hounds.
The work of Police Service Dog Jack was highlighted Wednesday at a drug trial here in Kelowna. According to his handler, Jack sniffed the exterior of three vehicles and detected the presence inside them of a total of 3.25 kilograms of cocaine.
That was nothing.
“Words cannot describe the ground breaking career that PSD Jack had and the contributions he made to the Force,” reads a memorial the RCMP posted on its website after the pooch died in December 2008.
In 2000, Jack was the first police dog in Canada to be assigned to a traffic-cop handler and after just two weeks on the job turned up a suitcase containing $196,250 inside a van. And it wasn’t just cash he could find. The memorial says Jack could detect marijuana, hash, cocaine, heroin, magic mushrooms, meth and ecstasy. He would have been great at parties.
Jack sniffed out drugs worth an estimated $42 million over the course of his career, with his largest prize being 500 pounds of pot.
And do you know what his reward was for all that work?
A toy and some kind words.
When was the last time your dog did anything for kind words? If yours is anything like mine, it might wag its tail for kind words, but if you want action, you have to dispense some harsh words, and even those are unlikely to get results.
Don’t get me wrong: my dog has me wrapped around his little paw – one of them, I mean – and I’m a total sucker for his I’m-so-glad-you’re-home act. I know he only gets that way because he understands its time for his walk. After that comes dinner, during which he knows there’s a good chance he’ll be getting people food, against the advice of his doctor.
Once that’s over, Buddy, a medium-sized mutt of questionable heritage, then retires to an evening of napping and passing gas. His exuberance is only re-awakened in the morning when he begs for a bit of my breakfast followed by a shorter version of his evening walk. The rest of his day I imagine is spent napping and passing gas.
If you’re like my girlfriend and I, we have imaginary conversations during which one of us will assume our dog’s imagined voice and speak what we think is on his mind. (Don’t act like you’ve never done it.) Over the course of those dialogues, we’ve learned that Buddy’s life ambition is to be a police dog.
I’d hate to be the one to break it to him, but I don’t think it’s in the cards. He would probably eat all the drugs he found, insist on riding around in the cruiser with the window open, and refused to work for anything less than a pawful of Snausages. Mind you, he would have no problem biting bad guys.
Still, for all his shortcomings, I imagine the eulogy I give Buddy – hopefully many years from now – will likely sound much like the one Jack’s handler gave his best friend.
“Jack gave our whole family more joy and love than anyone could have dreamed of and I am forever in debt to him and will thank my lucky star for the amazing eight years that we had together,” Cpl. Tim Baulkham wrote in his partner’s memorial. “Jack will always be terribly missed, but never will he be forgotten.”
Truer words have never been barked.
joe@kelowna.com
250-575-4303
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Mr. Fires..be proud of your dog..It does not matter what the heritage or even if they don’t have any heritage…dogs truely are a man’s best friend…even though they some times act like a man….”napping and passing gase.”..What ever you do, “do not burst his bubble”..let him dream about being a police dog..we all need a dream.
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