A drug dog team will once again be sniffing out crime at the Saskatchewan-U.S. border thanks to a couple from Roche Percee.

When Sam and Pat Dzuba heard Holly and her handler, Toban Tisdale, had been cut from the North Portal border crossing, they decided to start a poster campaign to get the team their jobs back.

"We just didn't understand because we have lots of drugs here and we need all the help we can and that dog is brilliant," said Pat.

Each dog and handler is trained in Quebec to recognize the specific smell of drugs, firearms, money, food, plants and animals products that could be illegally crossing the border.

To bring back the dog team, husband and wife started hanging posters with Holly's picture on it around town and sent them with friends to hang them up in Calgary and Vancouver.

"We sent them to everybody and anywhere we could think of," she said.

The posters encouraged people to email Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki and ask for the dog detector team to get their jobs back. The detector dogs have been monitoring Canadian borders since 1978. The dogs work for an average of eight to 10 years.

Pat believes her and her husband's hard work paid off and said she is so pleased to have the only dog detector team for border crossings in Saskatchewan back at work.

The Canadian Border Service Agency declined a request for a radio interview.

In an email response, they said, "While detector dogs are effective in several environments, in some modes they have proven to be less successful than other available technologies or search methods. The intent of the savings measure is to eliminate detector dog service teams particularly where there are other options in place that have proven to be more effective, multiple teams and/or lower risk locations. Of note, the detector dog team at the North Portal Port of Entry is not affected as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan nor are drug or firearm detector dog teams at any other land ports of entry."

tburdeniuk@rawlco.com

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