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Kilo lived with Lockwood full-time during the four years he was the dog’s handler. “He kinda goes, ‘Oh, there’s something here… I got it, boss, are you looking at me?’” before sitting down in front of the contaminated boat to show that something is amiss, Lockwood said.īuilding that closeness between dog and human takes time and commitment from the dog’s human handler, making it a work relationship that spills over into daily life. With Kilo, that’s giving his handler a quick glance when he first detects an invasive mussel before taking another sniff. “It becomes fun for the dog.”įor the human handlers, the trick is learning how each dog reacts and picking up on their cues, he explained. “When he finds it and you pay him with his reward, he goes insane and has a lot of fun,” Lockwood said.
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Once they start linking the reacting to the smell with something fun like a treat or a game of fetch, the trainers start presenting the dog with several scent-filled metal cylinders and asking them to figure out which one is full of the desired smell. Lessons start by introducing the dog to several smells-including the one they are being trained to detect-and rewarding them when they sniff out and react to the desired smell. Once they move out of puppyhood, dog and handler both head to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s main canine training center in B.C.’s Lower Mainland for a three-month course in the craft of detecting specific smells, like firearms, drugs, or invasive mussels. The young dogs live with their future handlers, who introduce them to basic commands. Training starts when the dogs are still puppies, Lockwood explained. With thousands of boats passing through the province’s mussel-detection checkpoints each year, the pups are indispensable to the province’s efforts to keep the mollusks out. The dogs are “amazing” at their job, detecting mussels faster and more accurately than people, Lockwood said. Kilo is on the case as part of an invasive mussel detection team working in British Columbia. Keeping them out is a full-time job for Kilo, his fellow canine mussel-detection partner Major, and about 45 conservation officers scattered throughout B.C. and a handful of other western provinces, territories, and U.S. The mollusks rapidly took hold, growing on everything from irrigation lines to hydroelectric dams, and spread around waterways from the Eastern Seaboard and Ontario to California via contaminated boats.
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First seen in North American lakes and rivers in the 1980s, they were probably imported by ships dumping their ballast water into the Great Lakes. Zebra and quagga mussels are small freshwater mussels originally from the Black and Caspian seas. conservation officer and Kilo’s first handler. It was a sure sign that a mussel was hiding somewhere in the machine, said Sgt. After a quick sniff and a glance back at his master, the black-haired German shepherd sat down and stared at the boat. Kilo-the team’s invasive species detection dog-wasn’t so sure. The smooth, brightly painted hull was scrubbed clean, with nothing to tip off the conservation officers checking the craft for clumps of invasive mussels that anything was amiss. None of the human officers were hurt.This piece was originally published in Canada’s National Observer and appears here as part of our Climate Desk collaboration.Īt first glance, the boat stopped at a highway checkpoint near Golden, British Columbia, was unremarkable. At around 2:50 p.m., a team, including K9 officer Frankie and his handler, was sent in to try to apprehend Mack.Īccording to police, Mack fired multiple shots at officers during their attempt to apprehend him, striking Frankie.įrankie was rushed to Wachusett Animal Hospital in Westminster, where he was pronounced dead. State police spent several hours trying to convince Mack to exit the home, but were unable to do so. Mack was wanted on charges related to a shooting incident on July 21 in Fitchburg. after being contacted by members of the Massachusetts Violent Fugitive Apprehension team. Police said the standoff began Tuesday morning when the suspect, Matthew Mack, 38, barricaded himself inside the multi-family home at 40 Oliver St. ( WBZ NewsRadio ) - A standoff with an armed fugitive suspect who barricaded himself inside a home in Fitchburg on Tuesday resulted in a K9 police dog being shot and killed and the suspect taking his own life, Massachusetts State Police said.
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