Black Fern policewoman meets canine namesake
When Black Fern and South Taranaki Constable Iritana Hohaia spent a few hours recently visiting the Police Dog Training Centre, she left something behind.
That something is her name, which she now shares with a young German shepherd puppy she met while visiting the training centre.
Iritana (Taranaki iwi), was one of the faces of the Puhikura recruitment campaign targeting wa¯hine Maori — in which she featured in a documentary tracking her decision to join the police.
Iritana grew up in Opunake ¯ and began playing club rugby at Coastal as a child. She was a member of the gold-medal-winning
New Zealand sevens team at the Youth Olympics in 2018, scoring a try in the final victory over France. She was Taranaki Whio’s Player of the Year in 2019, but after suffering an injury in 2021, had to look at another career besides rugby.
Police was the career she picked, and she is now nearly a year into her career as a constable in the Central District. Rugby is still part of her life as well, with Iritana signing her first fulltime Black Ferns contract this year, and it was with her teammates in the Black Ferns that she visited the dog training unit.
The puppy, which was 17 weeks old at the time, didn’t yet have an official name when the team visited, but as she was from an ‘I’ litter, it needed to start with I. By the end of the squad’s visit she did have a name — Iritana, or Iri for short.
Constable Iritana, who’s currently on leave because of her rugby commitments, is thrilled.
“It’s quite surreal having a dog named after me — it’s quite an honour.”
Inspector Todd Southall, national coordinator police dogs, says the visit came at the right time.
“We are always looking for names for our pups and using various groups within our communities to help us — such as schools, community and sports leaders — has been fantastic,” he says.
“Having this pup named after Iritana is fantastic and acknowledges another amazing member of police, and also brings another pup named after a top New Zealand sports representative.
“This initiative also helps the police and the dog section to recruit awesome people into the organisation.”
Previous dogs named after sportspeople in the black have included Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Nehe Milner-Skudder.
Puppy Iritana was one of six in her litter and will remain part of the Police Dog Breeding Programme. Her siblings have headed to Wellington, Rotorua, Gisborne and Tauranga as potential patrol dogs.