Profile: Mélanie Girouard

Border services officer and her detector dog work as a team at one of Canada’s major airports

Gatekeepers at Canada’s door

Officer Mélanie Girouard and her detector dog Skeeter are protecting Canadians as part of the Canada Border Services Agency’s Detector Dog Service. She works at Montréal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in food, plant and animal inspection.

The job draws on Mélanie’s experience as a food inspector and her love of animals. “This is the best job,” she says. “It’s so rewarding to know that I’m making a real difference by stopping harmful goods from entering Canada.”

“Travellers are often surprised to learn that bringing only a couple of apples into the country can pose a problem,” she adds, “but we’re here to protect Canada’s food supply. Fruit can carry harmful diseases and insects that could threaten Canada’s agriculture and environment. The same is true for meats like pork, chicken and beef that can carry bacteria and viruses.”

Teamwork gets the job done

Detector dogs and their handlers work as a team. They make sure prohibited, controlled and regulated items like drugs, currency, firearms, food, plants and animals don’t get smuggled into Canada. Because the dogs are friendly and non-intrusive to passengers, they’re very efficient compared with other examination methods, reducing the time it takes to screen passengers, baggage and commercial shipments.

Dogs have one of the most acute senses of smell of any animal. At airports, the detector dog teams are positioned at the baggage carousels and if the dogs detect anything, they sit down beside the source of the odour. The Agency has 74 detector dog teams working across Canada at marine, air, highway and rail ports of entry, as well as at postal and courier centres.

Mélanie has developed a strong bond with Skeeter, a five-year-old beagle, since they began working together in November 2007. “He’s so enthusiastic and dedicated,” she says. “He may be small but he’s fast and nothing can deter him once he sniffs something out.”

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