Blood Tribe Police Service adds K-9 unit

Posted on 20 May 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Alexandra Noad

Alberta Newspaper Group

The Blood Tribe Police have recruited a couple of four-legged furry officers to assist them in their patrols.

Police service dogs Grizzly, a three year-old German Shepherd and Fergus, an eight year old German Shepherd have officially completed training with their handler Sr. CST. Matt Lapointe and have already settled into their roles supporting frontline operations through tracking suspects or missing persons, locating evidence, conducting searches and assisting in high-risk situations.

Fergus is trained as an ignitable liquid detection and can identify 14 different ignitable liquids and can tell if any of them have been used to start or accelerate a fire.

Grizzly is trained in drug detection and is trained to attack fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroine and other hard drugs.

Lapointe say having Grizzly on board will give them a significant advantage when performing drug stops.

“A lot of the drugs these days are very difficult to detect during a traffic stop, whereas the use of the dogs gives us an ability to smell something that can’t be seen.”

With the Blood Tribe still battling the opioid crisis, Chief Grant Buckskin, chief of police for Blood Tribe Police Service, says having the canines as part of the team, puts another barrier for those wanting to bring drugs into the community which creates chaos and damage within the community

“Just the fact that we have a canine is going to send a message out to the people who are supplying the drugs out here.”

Having the support of the canine unit onsite will help in situations where time is of the essence. Prior to having their own canine unit, the Blood Tribe Police relied on nearby RCMP canine units, which could take up to four hours to arrive.

Lapointe says they have seen a drastic reduction in the time frame to investigate, noting a recent event where they were able to track down a lady with medical conditions who had wandered away from a residence and they were able to have the dogs out tracking within five minutes.

While both dogs are trained for apprehension, Chief Buckskin says it will be used as a last resort and their main focus is community safety.

“There’s going to come a time where we’re going to have to use it for apprehension of a criminal, but that wasn’t the purpose of doing this, we wanted to provide a safer community and this is only going to help us reach that goal.”

Grizzly and Fergus, along with Lapointe, have made many appearances at community events and visited classroom. They have been welcomed with open arms and lots of pets from the community members.

The Blood Tribe is working on adding an additional four positions to the Canine Unit within the next 18 months, bringing the total to five canine handlers on the unit.