An RCMP Constable and his dog have been a part of at least one happy ending since arriving in Steinbach at the beginning of July.

Constable Garfield Henderson and his four-year-old RCMP dog Enzo transferred from Vancouver Island where he was stationed for the past ten years. Henderson says he has been with the RCMP for the past 16 years, about 11 of those spent as a dog handler. He notes his first dog, Tony, was by his side from 2006 to 2013. He notes it was at that time Tony retired and Henderson acquired Enzo as his new sidekick.

Constable Garfield Henderson and his RCMP dog EnzoHenderson says the RCMP has two main areas of training for dogs, one is to train them for narcotics and the other for explosives. Enzo has been trained for narcotics and is also able to be used in search and rescue situations, such as the four-year-old girl who went missing on September 11 in La Broquerie. He notes members from the Steinbach detachment called him around 3 p.m. that day with the details of a child who had been reported missing.

"By the time we got on scene, the child had been missing upwards of an hour. What transpired was the young girl woke up from a nap and she was looking for her babysitter, and the babysitter was out of the house doing some chores. The dog walked outside and she followed it into the bush and ended up getting lost. Once we got on scene we were able to ascertain what had happened and, luckily, the old story, the dog came home. My experience as a dog handler, I just went to the last spot where the dog was seen and I cast it out with my dog. We were able to locate a track and we followed it about 20 minutes into the bush where we were able to locate the girl crying."

RCMP dog EnzoHenderson recalls another call while still on Vancouver Island. He says a nine-year-old boy walked away from a group home and into the bush, adding the bush in British Columbia is very different than here in Manitoba. Henderson notes they were able to locate the boy about a kilometre away where he had hid in a hole and covered himself with shrubbery adding, without the use of an RCMP dog, the boy may not have been found.

He says there is the misconception of RCMP dogs being aggressive, however, Henderson notes he would have no problem taking Enzo into a daycare or elementary school classroom because of his calm temperament adding, in his opinion, the RCMP have the best-trained dogs in the world for tracking.

"That's what we pride ourselves on and we have people from all over the world [who] come and try to learn from the RCMP on how we track because they don't understand how our dogs are able to follow from [point] A to [point] B. Like I said before, [the missing child in La Broquerie] was a good call with a great outcome. We were just lucky we were able to find her and she was fine."

Henderson says he grew up in Saskatchewan and is happy to be here in Steinbach, back on the prairies and adds he's looking forward to the years ahead with many more successful outcomes.

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