An Island police dog named Rook has proven his worth by protecting his handler from a black bear and her two cubs - and then going on to catch a suspected criminal.
A donnybrook broke out about 4: 40 a.m. Wednesday, when Const. Jarrod Trickett of the Port Alberni RCMP detachment was asked to track a suspect with his seven-year-old German shepherd.
Trickett, said he got Rook out of the kennel, opened the rear of his truck and then noticed what appeared to be three black mounds about six metres away.
The mounds were bears.
Rook went into protection mode immediately.
"He's looking right at them, and I didn't have a chance to say 'no' and he was on top of them," Trickett said. "He went after the three bears, got in a scrap with them."
The canine sent one of the cubs up a telephone pole and continued to battle the other two bruins. Trickett said he yelled at the top of his lungs "back" to break off the brawl.
"After probably the third time I said 'back,' he came back to me, ran right past me, jumped in the Suburban. I went to the Suburban, looked at him, checked him out. He had all his ears, all his eyes, all his paws, all his legs. There was no cuts on him, no blood, no nothing, and he was just all ready to go to work."
Trickett said he closed the truck's door, hopped in, turned on the emergency lights and headed down his driveway. He then noticed two of the bears rush by him, stopping only when they got to a nearby hill, where they looked down upon his truck.
"I can almost picture what they were saying in their minds: 'What just happened?' "
Trickett raced to the call and checked Rook over before putting a tracking harness on him.
"We tracked the suspect for about a kilometre, a kilometre-and-a-half through brambles, over logs, falling in holes, going through mud, going through bush, and then we locate the suspect and apprehend him," Trickett said.
By 6: 20 a.m., he was back at the detachment office, writing up his report.
Just another day on the job.
