The Victoria Police Department welcomed a new officer this week and he might just be the cutest member on the force.
The chocolate Labrador is less than a year old and needs to complete training before he can become a powerful weapon on four legs.
His name is Buddy, but only temporarily.
VicPD has asked local grade four students to help choose a name for the dog within the next few weeks.
“It could be upwards of 1,000 I think is what the school liaison officers were saying today just for grade four within Victoria and Esquimalt, hopefully within that we get a lot of good names,” Const. Eric LeQuesne said. “It’s a tough process to choose what we’re going to actually name him.”
The winning school will be awarded a pizza party and a demonstration from the K9 unit.
Buddy lives full-time with LeQuesne, his family and another police dog, a German shepherd named Diesel.
“He just wants to play, he just wants to have fun and he’s got a lot of drive and I think that will translate very well to his working career,” LeQuesne said.
Buddy will undergo an eight to 10 week training course in explosives detection.
“He’ll be trained to recognize the odour and to sit when he smells those odours,” LeQuesne said.
Training will begin in April or May and they hope to have the lab working by the summer.
