Police celebrating K9 graduation and honouring retirement

The Lethbridge Police Service welcomed two, new four-legged members and honoured the retirement of a veteran police dog during a special ceremony.

After 20 weeks of comprehensive training, PSD Bobbie and his handler, Cst. Joel Odorski, along with PSD Bak, and his handler Cst. Josh Smith, are ready to hit the street. Both dogs received their badges from Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh Monday afternoon. 

Bobbie is a two-year-old Belgian Malinois originally from the Netherlands, and Bak is a two-year-old Belgian Shepherd/Malinois cross from the Czech Republic. 

In-house training for police service dogs includes tracking, obedience, agility, building searches, compound/area searches, evidence searches, drug detection, gunfire exposure and criminal apprehension. 

All LPS K9 teams work alongside patrols and as part of the Critical Incident Response team, responding to high-risk incidents. 

In addition to the graduation, LPS also honoured the short, but successful career of PSD Aron, a six-year-old German Shepherd handled by Cst. Steve Zwartbol. During his five-year career, PSD Aron responded to 421 calls, assisted in 213 arrests and proved wrong 33 people who thought they could hide or outrun him!

In the past few months Aron began slowing down and was ultimately diagnosed with cancer. In retirement he will spend his days as a cherished member of the Zwartbol family, receiving all medical care possible to ensure quality of life.

With the addition of the new dogs, LPS has three K9 teams with plans to begin training a fourth in November.