There's a four and a half year old German shepherd in Prince George who has had some Astro-nomical police training.
Born into the RCMP police dog breeding program, Astro is an explosives specialist, and everyone at Cesar Millan's show will be able to see him in action as he's put through his paces by handler, Cst. Ryan Drohomereski, Sunday at CN Centre.
Since he was eight weeks old, the police service dog has been exposed to all kinds of circumstances so Drohomereski said the crowds and noise won't faze Astro.
"He's going to be excited and definitely will be wondering what's going on because he loves to work," said Drohomereski, who started training with Astro since the dog was 13 months old.
A segment of the show features working dogs and powerful breeds. The local RCMP detachment was approached and of the three members in the RCMP police dog services, Drohomereski was the officer available to do the show.
"Astro will wonder why we're up on stage," explained Drohomereski. "He'll think he's supposed to be searching the stage. He'll definitely be wanting to work more than he'll want to sit and be looked at. We'll do a quick demonstration about focus and how the dog works with me and how we work as a team."
Astro and Drohomereski spent seven months at the training centre in Innisfail, Alberta, learning to work as a team and they've been on the street since October 2009.
"Astro is a general duty police dog, so he does all the regular things like searching for evidence, looking for lost people, tracking criminals and his specialty is explosives, so we do all the major events as far as explosives security detail is concerned," said Drohomereski, 34, who came to Prince George in April 2010.
Astro and Drohomereski have done lots of work in airports and spent six weeks at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and three weeks in Toronto at the G8 Summit in 2010.
Police dogs can specialize in one of two things, explosives, like Astro, or narcotics.
"Astro is the only explosives dog north of Kamloops and I cover the entire north for any explosives calls," said Drohomereski, who saw a police dog handler at eight years old and knew that's what he wanted to do as a career.
The average working career for a police service dog is eight years and when Astro retires he will be Drohomereski's 'inside buddy', he said.
"He will hang out on my couch for the rest of his life," laughed Drohomereski. "We're together all the time, he lives with me and my family and when I'm not working, he's out playing with my wife and two kids and I, and he's just being a dog and when he goes to work, he knows it's time to go to work."
Millan, star of the hit TV series Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, brings his new Trust Your Instincts tour to CN Centre at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are at all Tickemaster outlets.
