Rinty & Pals – Valiant Officers and their K-9 units!
In keeping with our Heroes theme, ANME Expo News would like to salute those valiant officers and dogs of the K-9 Units. The story we tell is taken from the following source:
Harris, Hannah. “How Dogs Work” 10 March 2006. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/dog.htm> 05 April 2011.
In our next edition we will continue the story. Stay tuned for more adventures of Rinty and pals!
D. Gantos, Editor
History of Police Dogs
European police forces were using bloodhounds as early as the 18th century. It wasn’t until World War I that countries like Belgium and Germany formalized the training process and started using dogs for specific tasks, such as guard duty. The practice continued through World War II. Soldiers returning home brought news of the well-trained dogs being used by both sides of the conflict. Soon, K-9 programs were begun in London and other cities across Europe. The use of police dogs didn’t gain a foothold in the United States until the 1970s. Today, police dogs are recognized as a vital part of law enforcement, and the use of police dogs has grown rapidly in the last five years.
Dogs On Patrol
Why do we bother using police dogs at all? For one thing, their sense of smell is almost 50 times more sensitive than a human’s. A dog can sniff out criminals, drugs, weapons, and bombs in situations where a human officer would have to search every inch, a dangerous task. In one case, Breston, a Belgian Malinois who works with the Cheektowaga Police Department in Cheektowaga, NY (a suburb of Buffalo), easily sniffed out a shipment of marijuana in heat-sealed Mylar bags, inside plastic-lined crates sealed with foam sealant, inside a closed storage garage. With his sensitive nose and a search warrant, Breston kept $3,400,000 worth of drugs off the streets.
More Cool Facts:
While a police dog is on a drug sweep, he can cover a lot of area very quickly. It would take human officers 10 times longer to search the same area and they’d still never find everything a dog can sniff out!
