I predate you all by about 40 years. When Brimstone and I first showed up in Banff about 1977 I, being a girl type, would not even be considered as a potential warden. Search dogs were in their first generation with Dale Portman, Earl Skjonsberg and Scott Ward being the resident dog masters. Of course no woman could ever apply for that lofty macho position. So Brimmer and I had to sneak in the back door.
In any community the local dog catcher is definitely low man on the social totem pole so no one wanted the job so I got it. (They had a big dog problem and were that desperate!) Parks Canada had never had a dog catcher before but they came up with a title “Domestic Animal Control Officer”. I never got to be a real warden and that was just fine with me – it gave me the freedom to do my own thing, I developed the program, wrote my own job description and took all my own cases to court myself (as did all the wardens at that time, no lawyers involved) As a peace officer I had all the powers of a warden. I took 74 cases through court the first year (never lost a case) but only had to take six cases the next year, the townspeople got the message. Now that all the local dogs were safe at home it gave me time to branch out to what ever interested me. I had worked with Earl and Scott with their dogs, laying track and being a general ever-present nuisance. Brimstone learned all the moves of searching and became adept at enticing stray dogs into our van. He was a great “deputy dog”.
Of course, like the wardens, I, at times, worked closely with the RCMP. Parks dogs were not trained to find drugs and the nearest RCMP drug sniffer was in Calgary so I persuaded them to give me enough product to train Brimstone with – and we had a lark doing drug searches with the RCMP.
I could write a book but I will leave it at this….Canada is the land of opportunity so any of you really, really want to do something you can find a way to do it. I am of the generation when women were just beginning to be accepted into the paid work force – it was not easy and I burned a lot of bras along the way but I feel that I have had some small part in making it possible for even the ladies to become dog masters or any other profession that they may desire to do.
I predate you all by about 40 years. When Brimstone and I first showed up in Banff about 1977 I, being a girl type, would not even be considered as a potential warden. Search dogs were in their first generation with Dale Portman, Earl Skjonsberg and Scott Ward being the resident dog masters. Of course no woman could ever apply for that lofty macho position. So Brimmer and I had to sneak in the back door.
In any community the local dog catcher is definitely low man on the social totem pole so no one wanted the job so I got it. (They had a big dog problem and were that desperate!) Parks Canada had never had a dog catcher before but they came up with a title “Domestic Animal Control Officer”. I never got to be a real warden and that was just fine with me – it gave me the freedom to do my own thing, I developed the program, wrote my own job description and took all my own cases to court myself (as did all the wardens at that time, no lawyers involved) As a peace officer I had all the powers of a warden. I took 74 cases through court the first year (never lost a case) but only had to take six cases the next year, the townspeople got the message. Now that all the local dogs were safe at home it gave me time to branch out to what ever interested me. I had worked with Earl and Scott with their dogs, laying track and being a general ever-present nuisance. Brimstone learned all the moves of searching and became adept at enticing stray dogs into our van. He was a great “deputy dog”.
Of course, like the wardens, I, at times, worked closely with the RCMP. Parks dogs were not trained to find drugs and the nearest RCMP drug sniffer was in Calgary so I persuaded them to give me enough product to train Brimstone with – and we had a lark doing drug searches with the RCMP.
I could write a book but I will leave it at this….Canada is the land of opportunity so any of you really, really want to do something you can find a way to do it. I am of the generation when women were just beginning to be accepted into the paid work force – it was not easy and I burned a lot of bras along the way but I feel that I have had some small part in making it possible for even the ladies to become dog masters or any other profession that they may desire to do.