Chris Lohnes is a retired Cpl. from the RCMP of 35 years. Chris has had 23 years of service with the police dog section in the RCMP, covering areas in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, Alberta. To that, he had 11 years of raising and imprinting potential police dogs. He has worked and trained 7 working dogs in the general duty, explosive, drug profiles, ERT and search and rescue. His duties covered Big City, Rural and small town Canada. Chris was heavily involved in the breeding imprinting program overseeing well over 70 potential police dogs over his career. 

 

Chris became involved in Service Dogs in 2012 initially with two other organization before branching off in 2016 to form Audeamus. During this time Chris was involved in the Canada General Standard Board of Canada committee on Service Dogs, and Saskatchewan government on a service dog standard. 

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In co-founding Audeamus Service Dogs- 2016, Chris developed a partnership with Dr’s Colleen Dell and Darlene Chalmers of the U of S and U of Regina to research and study the impact of service dogs with veterans on various circumstances – Opioid and substance abuse, peer support etc.  Chris was the lead head trainer for skill, task, routine and ritual development for service dogs in the research. This resulted in a consultative program development researched based service dog program.

 

Chris strength is his year of experience in understanding dog behaviour and skill task development. Having the ability to visual understand the inter connective relationship between the handler and dog with a mental health outlook is fundamental to the “one health” multi module approach this program has developed.

 

Chris as part of Audeamus, has partnered with Kalyna Kardash of Hero’s Companion, a Canadian-Ukrainian non-profit harnessing the power of the human-canine bond to heal invisible wounds in veterans and victims of war. Chris has been the lead advisory trainer for this program in Ukraine and has been on 3 missions to Ukraine and has assisted in the development of 20 plus blended service dog/ therapy dog.  

 

Chris has provided testimony to the Veterans Affairs Standing committee on Service Dogs in Canada in 2022. 

In 2017, Chris was part of an advisory committee to Dale McFee of Sask Gov. on developing a Service Dog Standard in Saskatchewan, which collected a considerable amount of information on Service Dogs and the Research from the University of Saskatchewan that was occurring.  

 

Presently, Chris is part of a committee to continue the development of a service dog standards in Saskatchewan as the governmental department for this file has changed. 

 

Chris continues to partner with researchers concerning service dogs and employ and develop approaches in the human animal bond which is key to a service dog and their handler