Last week police dog Gimley and his handler PC Tim Yates were praised after tackling knife-wielding burglars on Bradford’s Ravenscliffe estate. HELEN MEAD looks at how man’s best friend is still one of the most powerful weapons in the fight against crime.

 

Police dog Abbey hit the headlines last year.

With handler, Police Constable Daniel Sharp-Tetley, the two-year-old German shepherd helped to sniff out 17 laptop computers stolen from a Bingley primary school.

They were found in a field after police brought in a dog unit as they responded to a break in.

Police dogs are a vital and extremely valuable part of the policing team in West Yorkshire. The force uses 28 German shepherds, 14 spaniels and four labradors.

Different breeds are more suited to different tasks. German Shepherds are used for general purpose policing, while labradors, springer and cocker spaniels are used for more specialist work such as sniffing out explosives, firearms or money.

There is no situation into which a handler will not take a police dog – officially known by the initials PD followed by their name – but each is assessed before the dog is sent in.

In December, across West Yorkshire, there were 22 arrests involving police dogs, including 12 for burglary, one for attempted burglary, four thefts of motor vehicles, and two for damage. In that month dogs were involved in 14 searches, sniffing out drugs including heroin, cocaine, amphetamine, MCAT, cannabis and ecstasy. Cash was also found by the dogs.

Recently in Bradford, PC Mark Muscarella and PD Hobo caught two criminals in a house as they carried out a burglary. “The men had climbed through a bedroom window,” said a police spokesman, “PD Hobo went in, found the two men and they were arrested.”

Another incident involved PC Andrew McKeown and PD Alex, who responded to an attempted robbery at a garage in Bradford. “Four men tried to rob the garage before running off,” said the spokesman, “PD Alex tracked them to a taxi rank, where they were found in one of the cabs. They jumped out and ran, but were caught. A large knife was discovered in the taxi.”

In Silsden, PC Sharp-Tetley and PD Abbey were called to check out reports of cars being broken into. When they arrived two men ran off and hid. PD Abbey used her tracking skills to find one of them hiding in the back garden of a nearby house and the other trying to keep out of sight under a car. The expertly-trained dog also found a bin liner full of satellite navigation systems and a camera, all of which had been stolen from vehicles and was returned to its owners.

The presence of a dog can have a direct effect. “People are much more likely to comply when they see the dogs,” said the spokesman. “At a recent job a man was being violent towards his partner and was hiding in the garden where the police officer found him. He began to fight but the minute the dog was sent in he stopped.”

West Yorkshire Police has its own breeding programme, but other dogs can be donated by the public.

They are trained using a system of ‘praise and reward’, which not only brings out the natural abilities of the dog but increases the bond between dog and handler.

Puppies are given to handlers from seven or eight weeks old and follow a structured programme of training followed by a nine-week course. After 12 weeks they are ready to work but still have to pass an annual test.

Police officers wishing to work as handlers – who keep their dogs at their home – undergo a suitability assessment to see how they react to the dogs. They then start training alongside their puppy.

PC Sharp-Tetley teamed up with Abbey – his first police dog – when she was 14 months-old. “At the time we did not have any dogs available so she came from the Metropolitan Police,” he said.

“We are companions. When we are not working, Abbey is with me at home – she gets on well with my children.”

Abbey is a general purpose dog. “She doesn’t pro-actively search at specific properties. Spaniels will look specifically for drugs, and freeze if they detect any. They would look at a specific point in a cupboard, alerting the handler.”

He adds: “Abbey knows she is a crime fighter. She’s not an intimidating dog but she does the business. Dogs can look for people that police officers cannot find. They can track people who run off, and find those who are hiding.”

Once dogs retire, they remain with their handler, becoming family pets.

For general policing, dogs usually serve the force for around seven years, while search dogs do ten years. Eight-year-old PD Ben is the longest-serving dog in the force, and is due for retirement at the end of the year. He was given to West Yorkshire Police when he was ten months old. “He dislikes rain and motorbikes, and likes swimming,” said the spokesman.

Ben is the first dog given to handler PC Mick Kilburn, who has been in the force for nearly 19 years, joining the dog section in 2005. He also has a seven-month-old black labrador, Ozzy, who is about to train as a passive drugs dog, meaning he will work in places such as railway stations, where he will be used to check people passing by. If they smell of drugs the dogs are trained to react to alert the officer.

Beginning in December last year, an operation around Keighley railway station, using police dogs, identified a number of people as having recently been in contact with drugs. Several warnings were issued.

Inspector Lorna Meredith, who leads the dogs’ section, said: “Police dogs are an extremely valuable part of the policing team. They can be sent to many types of incident in support of officers and can often bring about a positive result which may not necessarily have been the case if they weren’t available. “They can search both properties and areas for drugs, cash, firearms and explosives in no time at all, which frees up officers to carry out other tasks. Police dogs are particularly effective at keeping order at public events.”

She added: “We have a puppy scheme from which we breed our own general purpose police dogs. This allows us to continually assess each puppy’s natural learning ability and also get to know its personality, both of which help towards making the final decision as to whether it will carry on to become a police dog.

“Nearly all our dogs are home grown, and we have supplied other forces.

“The scheme saves us a lot of money, allows us to breed the right sort of dogs and equally as important, provides the pups with an interesting and stimulating working life.”