Justice, a nearly seven-year-old German shepherd brought on to the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service’s canine unit in 2012, will be retired by the service after a new dog is trained later this year.
Justice and his handler, Constable Dan Turco, form the Sault Police canine unit.
Police dogs usually have a service life of about eight years, and as they near retirement, are replaced with another dog, the two dogs overlapping for a period of time.
Justice sniffs out drugs, responds to robberies, break and enters in progress, missing persons cases and performs a number of other duties.
“He has a high success rate,” said Robert Keetch, Sault Ste. Marie Police Service chief, speaking to the Sault Ste. Marie Police Services Board at its monthly meeting Thursday.
However, it seems Justice’s days as a Police Service dog are coming to an end.
“We have had some recent health issues with Justice,” Keetch told the board.
“We had to take him out of service for a period of time as a result of him demonstrating lameness in one of his back legs. We sent him to Espanola to be seen by a vet there…(then) the OPP recommended a facility in southern Ontario. We sent him down there, then he wasn’t displaying the limp, so we put him back in service.”
“There’s potential surgery as well, so he is towards the end of his cycle as an effective canine for this police service,” Keetch said.
The board approved the withdrawal of $69,400 from the Police Service’s Contingency Fund, created last year as a result of budget surpluses in previous years, for purchase and training of a new dog from the OPP.
The arrangement for the OPP to provide training for a new dog did not come without difficulty.
All Sault Police dogs and handlers have been trained by the OPP in Gravenhurst, Ontario, but in 2016 the OPP informed Sault Police they would no longer be supporting canine units for municipal police services.
The OPP based their decision on the fact they were changing the type of dog they were using and increasing the number of dogs for their own use.
“The OPP was in the process of transitioning their canines and didn’t feel they had spaces available for municipal services,” Keetch told SooToday.
“We knew Justice’s career with the Police Service would come to an end at some point in time and we began to seek out who would provide that training because we believe the canine unit is essential in our community.”
With Justice’s normal retirement date coming up this year or in 2019, Sault Police began looking for another solution.
Keetch said the closest community to offer new dog training (without OPP support) was in Edmonton, “which is problematic, not just in the sense of the training because we’d be required to send the dog and the officer out to Edmonton, but there’s also ongoing maintenance training (in Edmonton, on almost a monthly basis).”
Deputy Chief Sean Sparling began corresponding with the OPP in August, highlighting the close relationship northern police services have had with the provincial police (between 2015 and 2017, the Sault Police canine unit helped out with 42 calls at the request of the OPP).
Sparling was informed in December the OPP had decided to once again include the Sault Police Service in their program.
The OPP arranged the beginning of training for a new Sault Police Service dog for August 2018, lasting 131 days in Gravenhurst (along with new dogs for Sudbury and Thunder Bay Police Services).
Constable Dan Turco, stated a report to the Police Services Board, has committed to training a new dog and staying with the unit once the dog is trained.
“The OPP finds the dog for us. They bring in several dogs and they will match one of the dogs with one of the trainers that’s there to look for a good match between the two. They find the dog and we pay for the costs,” Keetch said.
OPP training of a new dog will cost $45,000 (including $22,500 for the actual purchase of a dog, vet bills and food during the training period), dog handler equipment worth $9,000 and $5,000 for other training gear, such as bite suits.
Accommodation will cost $12,000 (less than that if accommodation is provided by the OPP in Gravenhurst), and, along with meal costs, an expense allowance and fuel, the entire project could cost up to $69,400.