June
Service Dogs
We all love our pets and would do anything to make sure they are happy, healthy and get lots of cuddles. We celebrated National Guide Dog Day in April and it got us thinking about the service dogs who work tirelessly to ensure our safety.
There are so many different jobs that dogs are trained for nowadays. I’m certain we don’t even realise how many there are, and how much work they really do to keep us safe.
Fire Investigation dogs have been around since 1996. We currently have 17 fire investigation dog units in the UK, with a high demand for more. It is said there is no better tool for smelling than the nose of a dog. A dog's nose has 300 million olfactory receptors, compared to people who only have about 6 million. The part of the dogs brain that is devoted to sniffing is around 40 times greater than ours.
Sam joined the South Wales Fire and Rescue in 2003. Sam was trained to sniff out 11 different types of accelerants. Sam’s story is the link below.
Becoming a certified Fire Investigation dog is not easy and they have a lot of training to complete before becoming certified. Fire Investigation dogs are expected to work at heights, be deployed from boats and work in high risk hazardous conditions. A fire investigation dog’s job is to find the accelerant to provide evidence of what caused an intentional fire.
Having a dog in the investigation team allows for greater accuracy than modern technology. These amazing animals are able to tell the difference between natural gasses and a gas that has been planted. A fire dog can search an area of around 400-500m2 in under 10 minutes with great accuracy.
Today, military and police dogs are seen all over the world and they undertake numerous tasks including general purpose support work, search and rescue and detection. The work these dogs do is important in assisting the forces, and they can even help to uncover evidence which may have been missed by the human eye. Police dogs can quickly apprehend suspects and even help track down missing people.
The first dogs to be used in the police force were bloodhounds in 1888, by Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London Sir Charles Warren. Sir Warren quickly trained up two bloodhounds to help track down the now famous serial killer Jack the Ripper. Unfortunately for Sir Warren, one of his bloodhounds bit him and then later they both ran off, needing a police search to find them.
After a not so successful start to having dogs in the police force, they were reintroduced in 1908 to help keep the docks free from theft. The North Eastern Railway Police were the first to use police dogs.
This story and image is not from the UK, it was one I came across while looking through Netflix. Ruby was rescued by her handler and became the worlds best Search and Rescue K9 for her state. Sadly Ruby passed away this May just passed.
There are currently over 2500 police dogs employed amongst various police forces in the United Kingdom. The Belgian Malinois is the most popular breed within the UK police forces. All dogs must be trained and certified with their handlers after having completed their 3 years of probation.
The police force use specialised dogs for:
*Apprehension and attack: These dogs are used to locate, apprehend and sometimes subdue suspects. Apprehension technique is known as 'bite and hold'
*Detection: These dogs are trained to detect explosives or drugs. Some of these undercover dogs are specially trained to detect firearms and ammunition.
*Dual purpose: These dogs are also known as a patrol dog. You may see a patrol dog when someone has run from a crime scene. They are trained and skilled in tracking, handler protection, off leash obedience, criminal apprehension, area and building search.
*Search and rescue: These dogs are used to locate suspects or find missing people or objects.
Sadly police dogs retire if they become too injured, become pregnant, raising puppies or if they are too old or sick to continue working. The working life for a dog is 6-9 years. Nottinghamshire introduced a pension plan in 2013 to help care for the needs of the retired dogs. In many countries police dogs receive the same honours as humans when killed in action.
Assistance dogs are becoming more popular nowadays. We see them being used for people with mental health disorders, as well severe health issues such as epilepsy.
The breed of dog we use as an assistant isn’t primarily a Labrador or German Shepherd as most people would think. We are starting to see a vast mix of breeds from Cocker-spaniels to the little Westies. All dogs have a great purpose and we are finding more reasons to keep them trained, and in our lives.
The link has a lot more information regarding our amazing Service Dogs and Pet Therapy Statistics. I found this site useful while researching our amazing Service Dogs. https://petkeen.com/service-dog-statistics-uk/