Caring for man’s best friend
Cop tends to retired police dogs in their final years
“Ihave had these dogs for 10 years, but to them, I’m their whole life,” said Bai Yan, a 56-year-old policeman in Hangzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province.
Over the past 13 years, Bai has raised 26 police dogs on his own. For him, it also means he has to be with them as they pass away.
After seeing his beloved “comrades” leaving him one by one, he set up a nursing center for retired police dogs seven years ago to better take care of them in their final years. His nursing center is the first of its kind in China, and now houses 14 retired dogs.
In China, police dogs generally serve for eight years. When they reach retirement age, most of them are either adopted by pet lovers or stay at the dog training base, where facilities for their care are limited. Dogs that become seriously ill are usually euthanized.
“The life span of police dogs is short as they have a heavy workload. They need to sniff out bombs and often breathe in dust and even poison gas in the line of work, which easily causes lung infections. During patrols, they have to run dozens of kilometers, so their feet are seriously injured,” Bai told People magazine.
He believes that the police dogs see their handlers as family members. After working their entire lives with you, you should stay by their side when they near the end of their lives, he says.
Love of dogs
After retiring from military service in 1983, Bai became a policeman. Bai particularly likes the job as he can make use of his intelligence to analyze cases and arrest criminals.
It was in 1994 that he first saw the word “police dog” in an internal police publication. “I had an affinity for dogs when I was young. So I thought if I can train police dogs, I can have not only an assistant in my work but also a very close comrade,” said Bai, referring to police dogs.
That year, he bought a small wolfhound for 500 yuan ($74), hoping to train it as a police dog. Back at that time, his monthly salary was about 700 yuan.
Despite spending a great deal of energy on training, he ended up with a docile companion rather than a police dog. He then gave the dog to a friend to watch over his factory.
German shepherds are the breed most commonly trained as police dogs. Labrador retrievers and Belgian malinois are often trained to help patrols and sniff out bombs and drugs.
The turning point for him came in 2004, when he was invited to participate in classes at a police dog base in Hangzhou. There, he was a quick learner.
The same year, the police station where he worked was allocated two young police dogs, named Wangzai and Kaxi. The two dogs have since helped Bai crack various cases.
Once, a luxury home under a mountain was robbed. In the pitchdark mountainous region, the robber left a shoe as he fled. Kaxi smelled the shoe and chased the robber to some farmland more than 10 kilometers away. When Bai arrived at the scene, he found the criminal attempting to fend off the two dogs. Kaxi received severe injuries to his mouth and Wangzai to his ear in their attempt to apprehend the thief.
There have been many stories of police dogs fearlessly fighting criminals over the past decade. On one occasion, several police dogs Bai trained successfully found a gang of 500 members that stole electric bikes.
Nursing center
Near the entrance to Bai’s center is a small sunlit cemetery, where he buries the dogs that have passed away. Kaxi now rests there.
A dog that is 10 years in age is equivalent to a human at the age of 70 to 80. In addition to providing them the best care he can, Bai still makes the dogs exercise every day. As police dogs are accustomed to busy workloads, it is possible they will get depressed if they become completely idle.
“That’s why I simulate the working environment at the nursing center,” said Bai. At the center, there is a vast grass area where tires, springboards and stone ladders have been set up, but at a much lower height than they use at the training center.
In 2015, a dog named Gongzi was diagnosed with skin cancer. The veterinarian suggested putting him down, but Bai refused to give up on him. He researched Chinese herbal medicine and cleaned Gongzi every day, even developing massage methods for Gongzi. “You need to be tender and slow [while massaging],” he said. Gongzi survived.
Bai’s family and friends believe he spends too much time with the dogs. He tends to his pack before dawn and even during Chinese Lunar New Year he chose to stay at his center with the dogs.
In his daughter Bai Jing’s eyes, her father lives in his own world.
“He’s been married to my mother for 30 years, but they never went on holiday once. He gets home at 9 pm but gets up at 5 am to be with his dogs. They make about 200,000 yuan a year and half of the money is spent on dogs. Honestly speaking, my mother has a grudge,” she told People magazine.
Bai doesn’t dispute what his wife says, and simply remains silent when confronted with these facts. But when she saw how Bai could barely eat when one dog died, she still felt heartache for him.
A compromise was recently reached after Bai took his police dogs to China Central Television for a show. There, his wife saw for the first time the entire process of training that Bai gave his dogs. After the show, she bought beef as a reward for the dogs. Bai said he sometimes feels burdened, both psychologically and financially. “After I send all those dogs away, I won’t raise dogs in my next life, something that I can’t do in this life,” he said.