Pure-bred dogs ‘the future’ for police
Specially bred dogs are still the primary choice for drug detection and patrolling because of their health and ability, police say.
A rescued drug detection dog called Tasman, who works out of Wellington, sparked questions last week about why NZ Police don’t adopt more canines from services like the SPCA.
Police also have restrictions on breeds of working dogs, using german shepherds for patrol animals and mainly labradors as detection workers.
Tasman, known as Tas, a homeless bull-terrier cross bucked that trend and graduated from the Police Dog Training Centre three years ago. She overcame adversity as well as a paralysing stroke to become the nation’s second best detection dog.
However, despite her great abilities, NZ Police Dog Section national co-ordinator Inspector Todd Southall said specialised breeding programmes were the future of working police dogs.
Southall said german shepherds were the dog of choice for patrol work because it was a highdemand, high-risk job. But, at the end of the day, a breed such as a schnauzer wouldn’t be effective, he said.
‘‘[German shepherds] are reliable. It has to do with their strength, size and nerves.’’
Detection dogs need a high drive for searching and while labradors are the canine of choice police were open to looking at alternative breeds.
Many rescue dogs, like Tas, did not pass the training, Southall said. ‘‘She is a good dog, but had health issues we weren’t aware of.’’
A detection dog is worth about $20,000.
Police work with experts to breed patrol dogs and have had a breeding programme in place for german shepherds for over 20 years with each dog worth about $50,000.
A similar breeding programme for detection dogs began 18 months ago, spurred on by an increased need for skilled dogs in service, Southall said.