Bonnyville Victim Services has added a new four-legged member to its staff, as Odie, a two-year-old golden lab, has been brought onboard to assist the unit.
Odie is from Dogs with Wings, the only accredited assistance dog training centre in Alberta. From the time he was six-weeks old Odie was trained and groomed for his role as a trauma dog.
His main duty will be helping Victim Services support and assist witnesses and victims of crime and trauma.
“He was hand-picked for Victim Services because of his calm and mild mannered personality. When you see him working it is pretty amazing,” said Debbie Winstone Bonnyville Victim Services Assistant Coordinator and caretaker of Odie.
“I think dogs just have that intuition, but he is trained to pick up on the emotions of people. I have seen him in a room of people and be drawn to one specific person. It is pretty amazing.”
Odie joined the staff at the Bonnyville RCMP detachment about a month ago and already has helped out in a few situations. Three days in he assisted the RCMP with an interview, bringing a nice calming presence into the room.
“He is very calm. He is very laid-back,” said Winstone. “He is just someone you can talk with, who brings that unconditional love and that calming presence.”
Odie wears a vest that identifies him as a fully trained service dog, and when he is in the vest he is all business.
“When that vest is on he knows it is time to work and that he needs to pay attention, once that vest comes off he is just like any other dog.”
So far Odie has made a few visits to some local schools, participated in the Canada Day parade and assisted in touring a kindergarten class through the RCMP detachment.
Odie is the fourth Victim Services Service dog in all of Canada, and third of his kind in Alberta. He joins Hawk from Calgary Victim Services Unit (VSU), Lucy from Camrose VSU and Caber from Delta BC VSU.
“We saw a video of Caber and I guess that kind of planted the seed,” said Winstone. “A year ago Camrose got their dog Lucy, once we saw her we thought we needed to get a dog.”
Winstone is the main caretaker of Odie. He lives with her, comes to work with her and goes wherever she goes. Candina Wosminity, who also works at Bonnyville Victim Services, is the secondary handler who works with Odie.
She says the idea is to have Odie available to everyone across the Lakeland and plans to work with other units to accomplish this.
“Our goal is to assist the other units in the area. We are in the middle of St. Paul, Cold Lake and Lac La Biche. So the goal with Odie is to assist them if they need that assistance. I think he is going to be a great asset.”
“Because this is such a new program funding for Odie is totally the responsibility of Bonnyville Victim Services, it is not provided through any operational grants. We received a donation from CNRL in January so we have allocated some of that donation for Odie's budget. However in the future we may need to do some extra fund raising in the community to support this important addition to our unit.”