NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
Const. Matt Hubbard throws service dog Hutch a ball Friday, Nov. 1, 2019 near Strathcona Island Park. The pair are now training after Hubbard's last dog was returned.
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When purchasing canines, the Medicine Hat Police Service always gets a warranty and keeps the receipt.
For the first time in a long time – it actually mattered.
After roughly two months of training with his new dog Ace, Const. Matt Hubbard and K9 unit head Clarke White came to the decision to return the dog and get a new one for Hubbard to work with.
“I don’t want to come on here with a huge list of reasons on why Ace wasn’t a good fit – we respect that the breeder still has a dog to sell,” said White. “What I will say is that, we need the dog to be a good fit for our unit. We’re going to be running with four dogs once everyone is trained – we need to have four dogs that we know will always get the job done.
“Ace is going to make a great dog for someone else – we just decided to go with a different dog for this job.”
White added it is a common occurrence in the industry.
“It’s the same thing as a warranty,” he said. “You identify a trait in a dog that you don’t think will work – you need to swap it out and thankfully we have brokers that stand by their dogs.
“This happens in the industry and it’s something you have to be prepared for when you’re making a purchase like this.”
The new dog is two-year-old Hutch, a German Shepard who comes from a breeder in Germany. Hubbard will take what he learned in the first couple months with Ace to train Hutch.
“It’s been good so far,” said Hubbard. “It looks like he’s got prior training and I’ve got a couple months as well.
“We’re going to continue to build our bond and become a team.”
Hutch understands mostly German right now, meaning Hubbard gives the canine most of his commands in Deutsch.
“He understands ‘sit’ in English,” said Hubbard. “His commands for ‘down’ and ‘heel’ are in German.”
White says the language doesn’t matter – the response does.
“It doesn’t matter what they’re saying – we just need to get the intended result every time,” he said. “Astor, another one of our dogs, understands Czech – whatever works.”
Hubbard will continue training 40 hours each week and hopes to be ready for the streets at some point in December.
“It’s a lot of work and I’m learning something new every day,” he said.
Catching up
Const. Bev Kennedy began training with her dog Kal a couple months ago. White says he is hoping Kennedy and Hubbard are done training at the same time.
“Bev is doing really well – they’re making progress every day,” said White.
Const. Jason Dola is the fourth member of the K9 unit and he has completed training with PSD Flint, who was in need of a handler a few months ago.
“They finished up recently and they’ve had some shifts out on the streets together,” said White. “I don’t think they’ve had to track anyone yet – but it’ll happen.”
