K9's hard at work

[Aimee]

I work for a public school system and today we had 20 K9's come to inspect our school buildings for drugs, weapons and explosives. My Superintendent knows my love of animals and my interest in working dogs. This morning he came to my office and told me to go and observe :D I was thrilled. I went to the search at the middle school and it was amazing to watch these dogs and officers at work. This was a routine search, we do it twice a year, however this was my first time observing the process. They were all shepards or shepard mixes and most were aggressively trained but there were a few who had been passively trained. It was neat to watch the different reactions among the different dogs. One police officer had one with a severe attitude so we had to be cleared completely of the hallway when he brought him in however, he was one of the best ones I saw at work. Anyone else been a witness to such a process or ever participated in it? It's truely amazing! One of our principals writes thank you letters to each of the dogs after their visit--she says they too are officers hard at work What an awesome job they all do!

Anyone know why police forces predominantly use shepards in this type of work? It also appeared to me that they were all males, anyone know if there is a male preference to this line of work as well and why?

 

[0728avila]

I am a Border Patrol Agent and the Patrol uses only German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois. I believe it is because of their drive. They can work all day and it get's awful hot down here on the Rio Grande. As far as males, I'm not sure there, the handlers here use both. I should also mention the dogs are trained to passively alert.

 

[Draymia]

I have several friends that are K-9 officers. I go and watch them work a couple of times a year. It is sooooo impressive. I just love watching them.

I did a fund drive at my business using my tips and donations from my customers, to raise enough money to buy one of our local dogs a protection vest. It took almost a year, but finally got enough. Another group got together and got a couple of biggies in town to donate enough to get vests for the rest of the dogs. They sure got theirs done a lot quicker than I did my collecting.

Our police departments use mostly German Shephards and Malinois also. They are all males except for one super working bitch. We do have an officer with a bloodhound for tracking and a lab that is used as a bomb dog.

 

[Loke]

I came in contact with an MP working dog when we lived in Hawaii. It was September 2001. After 9/11. Of course getting on post was hard and they did random checks. Well, I had a clunker that was on loan to us since we had to ship our van back to the mainland and the stupid hood was stuck so I had to be pulled over to the side and wait on the K9 team. (also shepherds that I've noticed) :rolleyes: And to add to the embarassment I had just picked my cat up from being neutered. Needless to say when they finally arrived I was asked to remove the cat's crate and sit off to the side so the dog wouldn't be interested in the cat and could do his job. Well, that didn't help much, he still wanted the cat!! :p I'm just glad he didn't find anything! I would've been quite upset if the loaner car had a surprise in it left by the owners!!:eek:

~Lenna

 

[Renee&Jake]

Originally posted by Aimee
Anyone know why police forces predominantly use shepards in this type of work? It also appeared to me that they were all males, anyone know if there is a male preference to this line of work as well and why?

I think Shepards and/or Mals will always be popular - and very good at this line of work.

On the flip side, Both of Josie's parents are Police K-9's - Ivo is ceritified Police K-9; Xenia is a Certified Police Tracker, Both parents are IPO as well.

Josie's breeder owns 3 Police K-9's total, 2 of which are female and has 3 other females out on police forces (Babsy, Elke, and Diva). (Xenia is Police Tracker, that *could* make 4 and 3 female).
Of course they are all Boxers.

She does train other breeds for Police Departments, she had a GSD from Belgium that was going to a PD in Iowa.

I've also seen Giant Schnauzers do K-9, too.

I guess it's all in what you love. I remeber though how cool it was when we brought Josie home, a few officers were coming to Kathy's for training. How impressive to see Boxers getting out of Squad cars getting ready to work!

Renee Basye
Jakob CD,NA
Josie

 

[myrocky]

Don't forget dobies do a lot of police work as well

And beagles are used to sniff out bombs/drugs in airports

 

[Faughtey]

I have watched police officers train their dogs in an empty building. It was all German Shepards the first time. The second time they asked people in the obedience club to bring our dogs in for testing. They were looking for any dog that could be trained to sniff drugs in a public place like an airport or school. At the time I had a cute fluffy cocker spaniel. The officers loved the idea of a harmless tail wagging little dog doing this kind of work. But alas, she was too laid back! But she looked awful cute, and I think they liked her anyway.

 

[debbie knowles]

Brought back a memory

Oh Aimee , did this ever bring back a memory for me!! Years ago before I moved from Illinois, I went to a festival on Navy Pier in Chicago. One of the exhibits was a demonstration of drug sniffing dogs. The staging area consisted of about 150 folding chairs and the observers were invited to sit in the chairs. We were told that three of the chairs had marijuana taped to the bottom of the seats and that the dogs would find them. We were instructed to just stay seated and chill if one of the dogs found the sample under YOUR chair. It was a riot and guess what the hysterical part of it was....the dogs found all FOUR packets!!!! Yep, some idiot was dumb enough to come to the demonstration with his own "sample" in his pocket!!! I guess he became part of the demonstration because he left with the police!!

 

[myrocky]

ROTFLMAO!!!

Debbie that is tooooo funny! Serves him right! LOL

 

[debbie knowles]

The funniest part of all was watching the police officers!!! They were about to die laughing! It was pretty funny!