News & Events

(Thunder Bay, ON) – The Nishnawbe Aski Police Service officially welcomed its newest K9 Unit members to the service – K9 Unit Cst. Daniel Birch and his Police Service Dog (PSD) partner Becks.

The new K9 Unit members were formally introduced during a news conference at the NAPS general headquarters in Thunder Bay on Thursday, Jan. 8.

Cst. Daniel Birch became the successful candidate following an internal competition in 2025 to become a member of the NAPS K9 Unit. This was followed by a 21-week training program that eventually led to him being partnered with two-year-old PSD Becks.

Both completed their training with the OPP-led General Service Dog course on Dec. 5 and were deployed on Dec. 6.

K9 Becks is a general service PSD and is trained to complete numerous specialty tasks including: Missing persons tracking, drug detection, firearm detection, evidence detection, criminal apprehension, and building searches.

NAPS first established a K9 Unit to its service in 2009. Canine member Pax served for seven years before formally retiring in 2016. Since then, NAPS has been without its own in-house K9 Unit.

The re-introduction of a K9 Unit to NAPS will help provide a more robust range of services to the 34 Northern Communities it polices.

K9 Becks will formally receive a NAPS service badge during a ceremony at the Thunder Bay headquarters on Friday, January 9