Ruff and tumble:

Every dog has its day and this time it’s the turn of the younger ‘dogs with jobs’ with the arrival of the local series Dog Squad Puppy School. Melenie Parkes reports.

Every dog has its day. Now it’s the turn of the puppies with Dog Squad Puppy School.

Even the most hardened truant would be reluctant to skip these classes – the only wagging you are likely to see at this school is courtesy of tiny tails.

On Dog Squad Puppy School, puppies are the pupils and they are learning very special – and specialised – skills.

Dog Squad Puppy School is a spin-off of the long-running local series Dog Squad. It takes viewers behind the scenes to discover how ‘dogs with jobs’, including mobility, police, biosecurity and guide dogs, are trained.

For Natalie Ramm, a dog trainer with Mobility Dogs, being a part of Dog Squad Puppy School is an opportunity to increase her organisation’s visibility. Like the Guide Dogs, Mobility Dogs receives no government funding and relies on grants and charitable contributions to train and provide service dogs that help people with disabilities retain their independence.

Like a furry butler, these clever canines can do all manner of things, including retrieving the phone, removing socks and shoes, and even loading and unloading the washing machine.

“It’s endless what you can train a dog to do,” says Ramm.

Mobility dogs are generally golden retrievers and labradors because of their size and their natural retrieval instincts but also because, “They’re much more socially acceptable as being the loving, family pet,” says Ramm. “When you have them in public spaces people aren’t fearful of them.”

But Ramm says the most important trait for any mobility dog

is that, “They have to have a real people focus”.

“They have to be biddable, they have to be calm, they have to be adaptable to a number of environments.”

They also need to have what Ramm says trainers call “an off-switch”.

“They have to be able to work when they’re asked to work but relax and settle down when they’re not needed to work.”

It can take up to two years to train a mobility dog and there are a lot of people who help in priming a pup for its new life including trainers, puppy walkers and even, surprisingly, prisoners.

The Puppies In Prison programme has prisoners learning how to care for and train a mobility dog over several months.

Ramm says the men and women who take part in the programme “find it a huge privilege”.

“They get a huge amount of satisfaction out of doing the job that they’re doing and they find it really rewarding.”

While mobility dogs have the important job of serving and protecting their owners, the dogs at the Ministry for Primary Industries must safeguard New Zealand’s biosecurity.

Kirsty Ansell is the kennel manager who is in charge of around 55 dogs across the country. Many of them are beagles, renowned for their remarkable noses, but there are other breeds working in biosecurity too.

Ansell says, most importantly, a biosecurity dog must be well socialised as they will be working in the community. During training, the dogs learn how to identify many basic objects. “That’s up to around 15 to 20 items,” says Ansell. From there, the trainers can increase that number based on the current risk items, which can change from time to time. “You can train a dog to sniff out anything. They’ve just got to have the motivation to do it and that’s why we use beagles because they love food.” While excellent working dogs, beagles are also known for their mischievous reputation, something which Ansell attributes to their obsession with snacks. “I wouldn’t say that they’re naughty. They are a scent hound and so they live their life through their nose and their stomach. And that’s pretty much why people think they’re naughty because they just want to eat everything.” When the dogs aren’t sniffing out contraband, they’re relaxing in their home at the MPI kennels, which sounds like a veritable doggy hotel complete with heated swimming pool and physiotherapy sessions. In their down time, Ansell says they encourage these hard-working pups, “Just to be dogs. We have nice big exercise yards with little swimming pools and they can dig holes and pee on stuff and just do normal dog stuff.”

“It’s endless what you can train a dog to do.”

– Natalie Ramm