Regina Police Service could change procedures around K-9 training

For Blair Roberts, Wednesday’s dog shooting incident was all too familiar.

“It was terrifying, really scary,” said Blair Roberts.

Six years ago, he nearly watched his dog suffer the same fate.

“A police officer approached from the other side of the road and our dog started walking towards him, didn’t get much farther than this tree when the officer pulled his gun,” Roberts said.

Roberts’ dog Scar was off-leash in the family’s front yard at the time, something he says never would have happened had he known that Regina police K-9 units were training in the area.

“They’re walking through where there’s several dogs, there’s animals all around here – we didn’t know anyone was coming,” Roberts said.

The incident ended without injury, and the Regina Police Service (RPS) apologized for the scare, but it left Roberts questioning why more wasn’t done to inform the neighbourhood.

“There needs be a way to notify the public when these kinds of things are happening. I feel like there needs to at least be notice around the neighbourhood,” he said.

The current policy used by Regina police is to put up signs whenever they’re training in urban areas – but those signs hadn’t been set up on Wednesday when the dog was shot.

The Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) say they’re lucky enough to have a number of community partnerships that allow them to train in urban environments, but away from people. However, on the rare occasion they do train police dogs in populated areas they do their best to alert the public.

“We do our best to try and get the message out, whether it’s using some social media, trying to alert the public,” Sgt. Kevin Pilsworth said.

“There’s definitely certain situations where it’s tough to alert the public,” Sgt. Pilsworth acknowledged, adding that even with the use of social media, it’s difficult to ensure everyone knows; particularly in high-traffic areas, like downtown.

The Prince Albert Police Service say they do to ensure there is signage in the area when they do urban K-9 training, but couldn’t confirm whether or not they released the information through social media.

The Saskatoon Police Service declined to comment. RCMP and Estevan Police were both unavailable, but could confirm they conducted K-9 training in urban environments.

RPS are reviewing Wednesday’s incident to determine if they need to make any changes to how they alert the public to K-9 training.

“At this time we are reviewing the information of what transpired and through our examination determine if any changes are required,” RPS said in an emailed statement.