The very special bond between police officers and their faithful dogs
Whether it’s at a football match or an international summit, you may have noticed more police dogs on the beat in South Wales. There’s such demand, the force is even breeding its own pups. But, as Amanda Powell has been finding out, at the heart of all th
WHAT they’re dealing with can be gruelling and grim. It could be confronting a knife-wielding criminal, uncovering drugs dealers or searching for human remains.
But, when we go along to meet them, the officers working in the South Wales Police dog section are all smiles, and their four-legged co-workers waggy-tailed and excited to play along as we photograph and film.
Police constable and handler Helen McWilliam has a six-year-old general-purpose German shepherd called Winn and a two-year-old springer spaniel called Teddy who is a crime scene investigation dog.
Like all of the 64 working dogs in South Wales Police, her dogs live at home with her and she says it’s hard to put into words the strength of the “massive” bond she has with them.
“I spend more time with my dogs than any other any person, including my husband, or any other family member because they’re with me in work, they’re with me at home, so on my rest days, I’m having to walk them morning and night,” PC McWilliam explains.
“They’re with me all the time, they’re part of the family so effectively, they’re like my children, although they protect me.”
It’s a nervy encounter for our photographer who positions himself at the end of a field for Helen to demonstrate “the bite” with German shepherd Winn barking loudly and aggressively, ready to be let off the lead and race towards the camera.
Once released, Winn speeds towards Sergeant Andrew Patterson who’s playing the role of villain and clamps her teeth firmly on the officer’s heavily-padded arm.
No matter how hard Sgt Patterson tries, he can’t shake the dog off, until a command from PC McWilliam brings her dog back with plenty of praise for a job well done.
This is an exercise, but it’s this kind of training which is not only a key part of crime-fighting, but also something which keeps the handlers safe in sticky situations.
PC McWilliam recounts a middle-of-the night encounter when she was alone in the darkness with Winn, searching for the driver of a stolen car who had run off in woodland above Merthyr Tydfil.
“We were tracking for about 40 minutes on our own, and we found him hiding in a bush at the top of the mountain,” she said, describing the moment when the dog detected the suspect trying to evade them.
“When he came out, he saw the dog. He stayed some distance away from me.
“She was barking and protecting me, as she’s trained to do.
“His first words to me were: ‘You’re brave aren’t you, coming up here on your own?’ but then I said: ‘I’ve got the dog to protect me.’
“He sat on the floor then, and said: ‘All right, I’m not coming near you.’
“The dog just barked and kept me safe until the divisional units could come and join me and walk him back to the police car.”
She says she feels honoured to be one of the 33 police officers working with these animals.
“There’s not many dog handlers in South Wales Police, so I feel it’s a massive privilege to have been able to get on the dogs section and to be able to work with the dogs every day.”
The need for police dogs has grown enormously, especially for those trained to sniff out explosives at big events like the 2017 Champions League final in Cardiff and the 2014 Nato summit, which saw world leaders like President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande descend on South Wales.
“To help make sure the events run smoothly and that everyone’s safe, the explosives dogs are used massively,” Sgt Patterson explains.
“The amount it’s increased in the last three or four years especially, has been phenomenal.”
It’s one thing teaching your family pet to sit and stay, but of course the obedience these dogs need goes far beyond that, although the method of praise and reward will be familiar to any owner.
Sgt Patterson demonstrates how a dog can track a set of car keys, perhaps discarded by a drinkdriver when the police turn up.
“We throw the keys out, give the dog the command to go and find the property, and the dog will locate it,” he says.
“It starts off by putting something on the floor, and when the dog comes across it, you reward them. Then you just build up from that.”
The dogs can also be trained to detect all manner of items like passports and even mobile phone SIM cards.
“You can train a dog to find whatever you want it to find,” he says, explaining how they get through a lot of old tennis balls which they use to reward the animals.
Although the dogs and handlers are close and even affectionate towards each other, there’s a big difference in the relationship between the canine companions and your average family pet.
“You’ve got to make sure the dog doesn’t become a pet – it is always a working dog,” says Sgt Patterson, who’s in charge of spaniel Spud and German shepherd/Belgian malinois cross, Amber.
“They can switch off at home, but as soon as the dogs get in the police vans, they switch on and become totally different animals.
“When it’s out on the street, you want your dog to stand up for you and defend you.”
That means the working dogs aren’t allowed to lounge on the sofa at home or even sleep in the kitchen.
“They live outside, they smell differently to pet dogs and my wife wouldn’t let them in the house.
“I’m lucky she lets me in the house,” he quips.
“If they were used to living in a house, sitting on the settee all day and then suddenly they’ve got to work a night shift in -5°C, then they wouldn’t be used to that... ours are outside in all temperatures, so when you want them to work outside in the hot and the cold they’re used to the climate, and it’s not a problem.”
The climate was one of the biggest factors to contend with when Sgt Patterson and spaniel Spud were involved in the search for Madeleine McCann, the toddler who disappeared in Portugal in 2007.
Four dogs from the force went to Portugal, a very different experience compared with home soil.
“We had a lot of pressure there because of the press, they were being watched all the time,” he said.
“The heat was a massive factor. They had to start very, very early so they could work the dogs before it got too hot with constant resting them, rehydrating them, cooling them down.
“But the dogs will work, whatever, you’ve just got to look after them.”
The different breeds have different characteristics, and all have their own individual personalities, strengths and weaknesses, he adds.
He describes the malinois dogs as “very intelligent, very sharp, high drive, just very good allround dogs.
“These will be generalpurpose dogs, which are the archetypal police dog, like the German shepherd dogs.
“They’re used for public order events like football, they’re used for tracking, they’re used for finding vulnerable people who go missing. They can switch on and switch off. They can do a bit of everything.
“We’re using the spaniels for their nose, which is incredible, and if you’ve ever had a spaniel in your house, you know it’s got to be walked.
“They’ve got the drive, they’ll go and go and go. They fall off things, but they bounce back up and carry on as though nothing’s happened.”
Those who don’t make the grade are then rehomed, and their failure as a police dog could be for a variety of reasons.
“It could be they don’t have the drive, they don’t have the aggression, certain things may frighten them too much, so they can’t be worked, so they’ve got to be a good all-round dog to make a police dog.”
The reliance on this four-legged crime-fighting force has meant South Wales Police has now turned to breeding its own animals again, which is something it used to do more than 20 years ago.
“We were struggling to get dogs,” Sgt Patterson says. “We decided to cut out the middleman and breed our own.”
A litter of German shepherds – Axel, Arla, Apollo, Astra and Ariel – were born last summer, and have been followed by sixmonth-old Belgian mali-