Police Dog Training And Expertise

Law enforcement departments around the world are depending on police dogs more and more to aide in daily activities. In many ways, a police dog is just as effective, or even more, than a human officer. Why? Dogs have an excellent sense of smell and can detect things that a human cannot.

Most people think that a police dog is used for finding drugs and bombs, but they have taken on more roles as the years move forward. Dogs are used to detect accelerants in possible arson cases, track suspects, search and rescue and even crowd control. Most police dogs are not trained to be aggressive. In fact, if a dog is too aggressive, it will either be rejected or possibly turned into a prison K9. In prisons, the dogs are expected to be aggressive with anyone other than its handlers. A public police dog is bred and trained for its personality and skills.

It isn’t cheap for a police department to purchase and care for a police dog. It actually costs thousands of dollars to purchase just one dog. When a police department decides to purchase a police dog, they are getting a dog who has had excellent training and is ready to start working. Most often, the designated handlers will spend a few weeks with the dogs prior to bringing it on board for the department.

A police dog will live with the handler and his or her family. Many police departments will hold fundraisers in order to raise the necessary money to purchase a police dog. When all is said and done, a dog may end up costing around $10,000. The benefits of having a police dog on duty for a department makes the purchase more than worthwhile.

Not only are police dogs almost an essential in many daily functions, but it is an excellent way to get more involved with the community. Public demonstrations and activities gets the public interested not only in the police dog but also the department. It gives the officers and the citizens a chance to interact on a more comfortable basis. When citizens feel more comfortable with law enforcement, they are more likely to cooperate and bring forth information should it be necessary.

After 9/11, police dogs were brought to New York from all parts of the country. For days, those police dogs worked endlessly trying to locate anyone who might need rescued and bodies of those who had not survived. Those dogs worked in the same hazardous conditions that volunteers were working in. However, they were able to get into some areas in which humans were not. Just as there were many heroes among humans during that emotional time, there were many police dogs that turned out to be heroes as well.