WATCH DOGS OF THE WORLD

By E. R. YARHAM

DOGS ARE BEING made greater use of
by the services and police in Britain than
ever before. When the King visited an
R.A.F. station recently he saw a number of
powerful dogs which had been trained to
co-operate with the sentries. Large num-
bers of dogs have been trained, too, to carry
out important duties with the army.

The year before the war also saw the
inauguration of a new policy in Britain,
training dogs for police work for Scotland
Yard. In 1938 the first of the Yard’s dog
detectives were added to the official strength
of that world-famous force. Britain’s dock-
side police are regularly accompanied by
dogs, which are extremely valuable in help-
ing to apprehend culprits. Theft is always
more rampant among port warehouses than
elsewhere, and in rough waterside beats

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Page Eighty-six

there is the added danger of assault from
ruffians. In such areas dogs are therefore
highly necessary.

Even before Scotland Yard adopted dogs,
some of the police forces in Britain had
their own four-footed allies. The decision
to supply Scotland Yard with dogs was
taken by the British Home Office after three
years of experiment and investigation. The
war necessarily put a limit on the number
of trained dogs available for the police, but
the post-war era is certain to see a great
increase in the number used. Although in
the case of Scotland Yard this is a new
departure, in other parts of the Empire
and in some foreign countries highly trained
dogs have been used for many years—dogs
whose intelligence is amazing, and which
are capable of tracking down a criminal
on a scent 12 hours old with nothing but
a scrap of paper dropped by the culprit
to guide them; dogs which will defend their
masters to the death; dogs which will tackle
the most desperate criminal at a single
word of command.

Perhaps the most remarkable instance of
their use, convincing the most sceptical of
their value, was seen during the trouble in
Palestine a few years back. Most of the
trouble was due to brigands and malcon-
tents, and the problem of tracing criminals,
owing to lack of clues, was an acute one.
Police dogs were brought from South
Africa, and Government official reports
showed that in a single year they tracked
down 17 murderers, discovered the would-
be murderers in 11 cases of attempted
murder, and solved ten cases of theft.

The dogs frequently followed tracks for
distances of from 10 to 20 miles, when the
scent was 12 hours old, and in certain suc-
cessful cases the scent was between 40 and
50 hours old—facts which speak for them-
selves with regard to the truly amazing
powers the animals possess.

Britain’s police dogs are given intensive
training before being permitted to join the
Force, and (give credit where credit is due)
Germany and France also turn out first-
class animals. A famous police dog school
is maintained in the heart of the pine
forests at Grunheide, Germany, and there
the dogs are first trained to attack and
throw down dummies of human beings.
Later a very wary assistant trainer steps in,
and he teaches the dog to throw down a
criminal on sight, but without causing
injury. Only in exceptional cases, where
the criminal is bent on staying at nothing
short of murder, are the dogs allowed to

go further than merely felling the assail-

ant.

Actually the aim with a police dog is to
keep it as gentle as a lamb when not in-
terfered with, not to bark or growl except
when it knows danger is near, but when
the command “Fight!” is given it is unfor-
tunate for the culprit. Away in Australia

the mounted police of the Northe
tory, Queensland, and Western

are accompanied on many of their
patrols by dogs. They are partic
valuable allies when the task is
down aborigines who have committ
crime. On many occasions vengef
riors have attempted to surround the
camps in the night, hurling their spear:
the darkness—but the bristling hair o

dogs and their low growls have w
their masters in time.

In the French training schools the
mies used are replicas of members
once notorious Parisian apache gangs, \
“toughs” terrorised whole neighbourhe
Bearing in mind the courage and ski
the dogs in tracking down and waylayi
rogues it is not surprising we havi ‘No
heard so much of the activities of —
above gentlemen in recent years.

In Britain, bloodhounds are used
general rule for tracking, although —
times they are crossed with the otter ho
in order to introduce more stamina

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