The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary has two new members on the force – of the four-legged variety.
The RNC today introduced the first two police dogs to be trained in-house.
Fogo, named after his handler’s hometown, is a German Shepherd-Malinois mix from Holland and Mackey, a two-year-old German Shepherd born in Slovakia, is named in tribute of one of the RNC’s founding police dog handlers, retired Constable Mac Tucker.
Fogo will be located in Corner Brook to serve with handler Constable Laura Furlong, while Mackey is joining the team on the northeast Avalon along with Constable Justin Day.
Fogo (left) and Mackey (right) (VOCM News)
Constable Day says he’s been working for nearly five years to be part of the program.
“I started tagging along with the K-9 guys every time they did training weekly,” he says.
“I had the chance to attend the RCMP facility in Alberta and do what’s called an imprinting course, and from that I took home an eight-week-old puppy that I raised for about a year. Raised it as a police dog, eventually shipped it back to Alberta, and that dog went on to service the RCMP in Ottawa.”
The RNC is thanking retiring police dog Kolt for his four years of service in the Corner Brook region. The two newest recruits bring the RNC’s Police Dog Services Unit to five.
