Kiana meets Kona in Kamloops

May 18, 2016 | 5:43 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Transit Police Dog Service made a special visit to Aberdeen Elementary School Wednesday afternoon. 

The service, which is based in the metro Vancouver area, brought in a dog specially trained to sniff out explosives. 

Up until a few months ago, the chocolate Labrador Retriever had no name. 

A contest was held to name the newest police recruit, and it was seventh grade Aberdeen Elementary School student, Kiana Onyango who came up with the winning name – Kona. 

“I was looking at names and I found ‘Kona’ and it just so happened that it meant ‘lady’ in Hawaiian,” she explained. “I thought it kind of worked. It was also a short name so it’s easy to call out.”

Kona’s handler, Cst. Aaron Chan said Kona had a few nicknames before receiving her official name. 

“We came up with a few different names but we were happy when Kiana submitted the name Kona because it really fits with a chocolate lab,” he said.

Unfortunately, Kiana wasn’t able to get too close to Kona because of an allergy to dogs, but that didn’t stop her and the rest of the class from enjoying Kona’s company and an informative presentation by the Transit Police Dog Service. 

Insp. David Hansen said the service was also there to bring a message of safety and security.

“One of our big messages is ‘if you see something say something’. The dogs play a very very important part in that role around reassurance of the travelling public and a deterrence for people that may want to bring a threat to those people in the transportation public,” Hansen said.

“So any opportunity we get to talk about our message and demonstrate what the dog’s capabilities are we certainly welcome it.”