Dogs without jobs

By Cassidy McNea

According to economists, the legalization of cannabis may be creating jobs for people but it is also putting some drug sniffing dogs out of work.

The RCMP website shows there are 170 dog teams from the K-9 unit across Canada. Many have been trained to detect the scent of cannabis which is now a legalized drug as of Oct.17. In fact, these canines are usually trained to smell a variety of illicit drugs and substances, some of which include cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and ecstasy.

As reported by CTV, 14 RCMP dogs trained to sniff cannabis were retired from the force to make way for new puppies to be trained with weed excluded from their palate. In Windsor, there are five dogs in the K-9 unit and three are trained to smell cannabis. By the end of this year, two of those dogs will be retiring.

Sgt. Rob Wilson, who has worked in the canine unit for the past 14 years at the Windsor Police Service, said the new dogs coming in will not be trained to smell marijuana.

“It’s like cigarettes. We don’t train our dogs to look for tobacco so it will be the same thing for marijuana,” said Wilson. “Our dogs will not be trained on marijuana because now it is legal.”

K-9 dogs are most often pure bred German shepherds, trained from the age of one year. It can take 17 weeks to train them and on average costs $60,000 for training and $1,000 yearly to maintain them. They retire at age eight. In Windsor, obtaining a puppy can cost $10,000 and training takes place in house which, Wilson says, helps to cut down on cost.

According to the RCMP website, it takes a dog around three minutes to search a car and they can work up to four hours with rest intervals. If they find something, they signal to a police officer by sitting and staring at the location where they detected an odour. This is called passive training and the signal is the same for all drugs.    

“Their noses are absolutely amazing. I always say ‘I wish I had a nose like a dog’ but other times I think I wouldn’t want to smell what the dog is smelling all the time,” said Wilson. “There are so many receptors in their nose and their nose is 100 times more powerful than a human’s nose and the things it can smell, just minute quantities of whatever they are detecting is unbelievable.”

But some dogs are unaffected by this new law, including the ones monitoring the border.

Since weed is still illegal to take across the border, a representative from the Canadian Border Services Agency said they will keep their dogs. Some RCMP dogs will be given to the U.S. where cannabis is still illegal under federal law and general service canines, currently trained to smell cannabis, will still be deployed by the RCMP.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled drug sniffing dogs can be used without a warrant as long as reasonable grounds exist. Dogs trained before legalization still working in the field could potentially stop people carrying legal cannabis.

Ken Marley, a criminal defense lawyer, said if a dog does not discern between drugs and indicates one and it turns out to be legal it could cause issues.

“Just because a dog indicates on somebody, does that give them grounds now to search them? I don’t think it does,” said Marley. “Unless a dog is going to indicate only for cocaine or some uncontrolled substance besides marijuana, I think that is a real problem.”

In an interview with Daily Hive, RCMP representative Caroline Nadeau said retired dogs will not be released for public adoption.

“Handlers usually keep their retiring dogs as pets,” said Nadeau. “If that is not possible, handlers will make sure they send their dogs to a home they know personally and know to be caring towards animals.”

Wilson plans on keeping his canine partner, Vegas, when he retires. At home he also has his former crime fighting dog, Quincy. He said most officers keep their dogs and he has only ever heard of one giving theirs up for adoption.

“We’ve been partners for over eight years,” said Wilson. “He’ll be definitely staying with me.”