Police Dogs | Trained a Police Dog

By the beginning of the twentieth century, various countries had begun to pay considerable attention to the training of dogs to assist the police, Belgium being especially notable. Most renowned were those of Collie type and a number of Belgian Collies were introduced to America to form the nucleus of a working team to assist the police there, whilst others were exported to China and Japan.

In 1900, chiens plongeur, or swimming dogs, were attached to the river police and used on the banks of the river Seine in Paris. Making the riverside safe for pedestrians during the hours of darkness, these dogs were trained not only to track down criminals but also save those whom had fallen or deliberately thrown themselves in to the river. The dogs used were mainly of Retriever type or crossbred Newfoundland and Leon berg type, and were kept in special quarters in the police station of the Quai de Tournelle.

In Europe, dogs were also employed on the frontiers for detection and pursuit of smugglers, but often those actually dealing in contraband employed their own dogs to carry illicit goods across the frontiers at night, thereby finding a good way to avoid the police dogs.

The first police dogs
In the early twentieth century, the British Police Force used dogs for detection and defense. Highly alert, sagacious and self-controlled, although they needed to be capable of assisting their masters, it was important that there was no ferocity in their nature. In the early days, many people were against the introduction of what was known as the Alsatian, a German breed used with success in its homeland. This was partly because of its country of origin, and in part because it was somewhat misunderstood, not helped by the misnomer 'Alsatian Wolf Dog'. The German police preferred a dog that was capable of serious attack, because laws there did not pre-suppose innocence until proven guilty, as is the case in Britain. Indeed, in Germany, one often saw dogs attacking people in a manner that would not have been tolerated in Britain.

In Britain dogs were useful for patrolling country lanes and suburban neighborhoods, on the lookout for burglars and petty pilferers. Airedales, Retrievers, Border Collies and crosses involving these breeds were commonly used in this work. They required no elaborate training and had natural aptitude for work.

Training a police dog
There was a certain difference in the training procedure for dogs expected to work in a city as opposed to those destined for the country. In towns, they were employed to clear public parks at night and to attract the attention of the police to any untoward happenings, such as thieves behind closed shutters in a jeweler’s shop, or suspicious characters lurking inside streets. The dog was trained to walk ahead of the handler to the next turning and to return to him if he saw anything suspicious ahead. Dogs were also trained to retrieve, including potentially dangerous items such as guns, daggers, knives and glass objects. This was a step towards discrimination exercises, which involved picking out certain items belonging to a particular person.

Training involved learning a multitude of skills, such as scaling heights so that the dog would be capable of overcoming gates and following nose work, or tracking courses. In this the dog was taught to follow specific scents, following perhaps that of a footprint or an item of clothing. Then there was the man-work course in which a dog was taught never to bite a stationery person, but to hold up and prevent escape. Full training took a year of intensive and highly specialized work, although those undertaking just the obedience section could expect to complete the course in three months. Several training societies were set up for the purpose of obedience training and these were often attended by amateurs who simply-wanted to train there own dog for personal interest or use. It was, however, important that such societies did not allow amateurs to go beyond obedience and nose work courses, as it would not have been wise to train fully a dog unless it was going to be used in Police Dog Trials when it would need to be kept in constant training.

As the decades moved on, dogs used in police work have become an increasingly familiar sight as their value has come to be highly recognized, and with careful training, dogs rarely act in uncertain ways. Many of the skills they were taught in the earlier years of this century have been modified to cope with today's lifestyle. The types of crime dogs are expected to deal with covers a wider compass than before and of course the dogs is used also for protection and rescue work, all this coming within the realm of police work and associated services.