Dogs, best friend of Humans, are known globally for their faithfulness, intelligence, ferocity, Obedience and sniffing ability. Dogs have been an integral part of the army, police forces and law enforcement agencies. Be it detection of explosives, narcotic, tracking or search and rescue, they have always been handy. They also play an active role in curbing and detecting crimes, dealing with risk arising from natural calamities like earthquake, land slide, avalanche and collapsed buildings. Dogs have been the first choice of all the police forces due to certain extra ordinary qualities they possess. In sniffing ability of a dog is approx. 100 times superior to human. Dogs could be used for missing persons and for patrolling explosives and narcotic detection and VIP and VVIP security.
History
Police Dog Squad of Ernakulam Rural District Police was started in the year 2011 at AR Camp, Kalamassery for providing assistance to the detection of crime throughout the district with 2 Sniffer Dogs and 4 Dog handlers. Later , during 2015 one Tacker Dog and 2 dog handlers were alloted to this unit. On 28.09.2016 a new Puppy is alloted having age of 3 months for training and now kept at AR Camp, Thrippunithura. Present strength is 4 dogs and a staff of 8 Handlers and 1 Cook-cum &ndashSweeper and 6 handlers . The age of 2 Sniffer Dogs is 7 years each and 3 years for Tracker dog. 2 vehicles were also alloted for the duty purpose of Dog Squad
Use of Dogs in Police Work
The dog's active sense of smell, sight and hearing have a decisive advantage over the human agencies and are put to use for assisting the Police in a variety of investigations and search operations. Dogs could be used with substantial success in tracking the criminals after a crime has been committed and in searching premises to locate criminals. Dogs could be used for recovering articles stolen, searching of missing persons and for patrolling, Explosives and Narcotic detection and VIP and VVIP security.
The handlers along with the dogs undergoes very rigorous and detailed training for 9 months. Department has started full fledged State Dog Training School along with Kerala Police Academy, Thrissur where the 9 months training is imparted by internal and external faculties.