Historical Notes — From Dale to Jack: Police Dogs of the RCMP

From Dale to Jack: Police Dogs of the RCMP

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In 1935, the RCMP purchased two dogs, Dale of Cawsalta and his son, Black Lux, for use in police work. Thus the RCMP Dog Section began. Like many other dogs before him, Dale had actually helped his owner with police patrols for several years prior to this, but it was in 1935 that he and Black Lux became official members of the Force. Two years later, in 1937, The Force established its first training program for dogs, near Calgary, Alberta. Originally, dogs such as Dale were used for tracking people and for locating articles, including hidden stills and caches of illegal liquor.

For the first several decades that dogs were members in the Force, a wide variety of breeds were used. Today, however, the RCMP’s dog training program is more structured. Dogs are carefully selected (the Force likes perfectly healthy German and Belgian shepherds) and the ones that are chosen undergo about 17 weeks of basic training.

Today, individual police dogs are used for more specific tasks than they were in Dale’s time. For example, Jack, one of the Force’s newest police dogs, has been trained as a narcotics detector. During his eight weeks of training, he learned to locate six different major drugs.

By 1999, the Force had 108 dogs working in various parts of the country, each with its own handler. The many operations these dogs are trained to participate in include searches for criminals and lost persons, security for VIPs, crowd control, hostage situations, avalanche search and rescue, and like Jack, locating illegal narcotics.

Today, almost 70 years after Dale and Lux became the first official RCMP canine members, the Force’s Police Dog Service Section has come a long way. While the dogs of today are no more intelligent or capable than those of Dale’s time, their training has been improved and their numbers have been increased. They have become an integral part of the Force and its work, and are invaluable both to the members they serve and to the people they help.

RCMP police dogs traditionally perform a demonstration of their skills and abilities at the Sunset Ceremonies held each summer on the grounds of the Canadian Police College in Ottawa.