Readying for retirement. How police dogs prepare for life as pets

This dog worked as an RCMP dog in British Columbia. Now Rip's about to get a new job, family pet. But first he's being retrained at a rehoming centre near Kensington. NedsWish is a charitable organization that supports retired police and RCMP dogs. It offers canine rehabilitation training at three sites across Canada. It's a very different lifestyle than these dogs are used to. And they need to kind of understand what the new parameters are, what they're allowed to do, what they're not allowed to do, and socialize them to some things that they are likely to experience in retirement. Smith says many people just assume police dogs make wonderful pets because they have so much training. But what they've been trained to do actually makes them terrible pets. For example, these dogs are taught to search. So they'll search your entire house and dig things out of your closet. Thinking they're doing their job. And Smits adds that some dogs are severely injured in the line of duty or suffer from PTSD. They don't have a concept of retirement so they just are who they are and having a life that is slowed down from what they're used to having can be very challenging and sometimes difficult for them to adapt to with a little out a little bit of extra help and a bit of a buffer between their working life and their retired life so we just sort of help them figure that out. Smith says training looks different for every dog but the end goal is the same to get adopted. She says she's grateful these dogs get to find a loving home when they leave. I think everybody's realized now that it's very helpful to have a rehome on the East Coast because otherwise all of these dogs would have to get loaded on planes, flown out to Alberta, flown out to B.C., which can add a lot of stress to dogs that are already going through a very stressful time in their lives. Smith says there's work to be done on the enclosures outside. But she hopes to eventually have a building big enough for indoor and outdoor kennels so the dogs can continue to thrive. Taylor O'Brien, CBC News, Kensington.