By Michael Joel-Hansen

Prince Albert police welcome a new member

Dec 1, 2018 | 11:00 AM

The Prince Albert Police Service’s newest member is ready to report for duty.

Police Service Dog Jeb and Constable Mathew Brown have spent four months training together, and will be hitting the street for the first time next week.

“My first scheduled shift is next Thursday night,” said Brown.

In order to get selected to work with a dog, Cst. Brown had to take a number of physical tests in order to qualify for the position. This included a four-mile timed run which the officer had to finish in 34 minutes. Brown also had to run the Police Officer Physical Ability Test or POPAT and complete that test in under three minutes 30 seconds.

“The dog has four legs, so they can run and last a lot longer than us with two legs, so a lot of K9 work entails being physically fit, you could track for kilometers at a time,” said Brown.

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Jeb is a two-and-half-year-old German Shepard who was born at an RCMP kennel in Innisfail Alta. He had been imprinted by an RCMP handler before being acquired by Prince Albert police.

“He came named already, so we figured it probably be best if we continued calling him Jeb,” said Brown.  

Along with the physical testing, which Brown had to complete in order to qualify, he spent extensive time working with Jeb in a variety of different situations and scenarios.

“We did it all in town here and the nice thing about Prince Albert is there’s lots of different environment and terrain, so you know one day we could be out at the airport, the next day we could be in the forest, the next day we can be in an urban environment in the city,” he said.

Brown and Jeb were officially certified by Jamie Chartrand, who works with the Ministry of Environment as a Conservation Officer and is a dog handler himself. In order to be certified the dog and handler are tested on everything from obedience to maintaining proper control.  

During the training period the two worked with Cst. Kelsey Bighetty, who works with Police Service Dogs Daxa and Feebee.

“Kelsey’s probably laid a track or tracked a bad guy (through) every part of this city, so he knows everywhere which we would be good for exposing the dog to new places,” said Brown.

When they do hit the street to start work next week the police service’s newest K9 team will be performing a variety of important duties.

“So basically, my dog Jeb has been certified as a patrol dog, which includes everything from criminal apprehension, evidence searching, tracking, building searches, compound searches, basically everything that you think you would need for a dog on the street, Jeb can do that,” he said.

Cst. Bighetty explained police dogs like Jeb are important to have in a city like Prince Albert because of their tracking abilities.

“We don’t have the air support like the big cities and stuff, so we rely on our dogs to track that human scent of that suspect that are fleeing from a scene,” he said.  

Bighetty said the dogs are an amazing tool for the police service and have a good time doing the work they do.

“It’s nice to have them,” he said.

Cst. Kelsey Bighetty sets up an article/evidence search exercise for Cst. Brown and Police Service Dog Jeb. pic.twitter.com/bm8hxTDv6y

— Michael Joel-Hansen (@mjhskcdn) December 1, 2018

The @PAPOLICEca newest K9 team demonstrate how to do an article evidence search. pic.twitter.com/YkBoKOG9Ub

— Michael Joel-Hansen (@mjhskcdn) December 1, 2018

MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn