Montréal’s first canine unit was formed in the mid-1960s. In the early days, the unit consisted of five officers, each with their own canine partner.

The unit was used only rarely in police operations and spent more time working in public relations. The executive decided to abolish the unit for administrative reasons in 1972.

Pilot project in 1995

In 1995, 23 years after the canine unit was disbanded, dogs again joined the SPVM as part of a pilot project which quickly proved successful.

Today

The canine unit was made a permanent part of the Service de police in 1996.

Each dog team participates every year in an average of 300 police interventions of various types (tracking, outdoor searches, indoor searches, protection, apprehension of suspects, and so on), using the competencies acquired in its specific areas of training. In addition to these special operations, the teams do routine investigations, patrol metros, parks and businesses, visit schools and other target places and more. In short, the dog teams are very busy!

Police dog trivia …

• A dog’s sense of smell is estimated to be 10,000 to 20,000 times more sensitive than a human’s.
• All the SPVM’s operational dogs live with their handlers.
• To replace one hour of outdoor search by a police dog you would need 30 police officers.
• The dogs are not affected by the cayenne pepper and chemical gases used by police forces.
• The SPVM’s dog teams patrol the entire island of Montréal.

Alternate information

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