Share |

Police Dog Handler

By: Tobay Dytham Swifft ... Click on author's name for more of their articles

Each day, the role of working dogs throughout the world becomes more demanding. These dogs are used for tracing criminal links and have been useful in solving various criminal cases. These dogs are usually accompanied by a police officer to the scene of the crime.

The police dogs are taught to provide assistance to officers in criminal situations. These dogs are often referred by the term K9, which sounds like the canine, a word that is generally referred to the dog and its relatives.

Due to their uniqueness, these dogs are taken special care and are kept in specifically built dog houses. In many countries the killing of a police dog is considered a very serious crime and anyone found guilty of this will be harshly punished. In some cases the killing or injury of police service dogs are considered to be equal to the killing or injuring a police officer.

In addition, if the unfortunate incident occurred where a police dog was killed whilst on duty they are given a complete police funeral in the same way that a police officer would be. Some of the functions performed by police service dogs are as follows:

1. Police order enforcement dog

In this case these dogs are used to enforce public order by chasing and holding suspects, or detaining suspects.

2. Tracking

It is referred to locating of suspects or finding missing persons and objects.

3. Detecting illicit objects

Thee dogs are used to detect illicit substances such as drugs or explosives which may be carried by a person.

4. Cadaver dogs

These dogs are trained in detecting the odor of decomposing bodies. Dog's noses are so sensitive that they are even capable of detecting bodies that are under water.

Police service dogs need to be trained professionally and proper care must be taken so that they can be useful during police investigation. The same level of care should taken when training police handlers.

It should be taken into consideration that the functioning of dogs is different to that of human behavior. As a result it has become essential that the handler is trained to the highest level to ensure that understand the behavior of the dog in different circumstances.

A Dog handler is a special police officer who is in charge of the training and handling of well trained police dogs. The level of training and certification for police dog handlers and police dogs should constantly evolve several challenges and has become more progressive as well. There are various institutes which impart training of police dog handlers.

A person in this institute has to go through both theoretical as well as practical training. Seminars, trainings and certifications are being offered through the American Police Dog Tactics which is usually open to any law enforcement, military as well as search and rescue units. Apart from handling the police dogs the living standard of these police dog handlers is even taken into consideration.

Becoming a police service dog handler does not require any formal education, but an apprenticeship under an established handler and an adherence to a code the ethics are important something's required to become a professional handler.