Never approach a strange dog
Ask the dog's owner before you approach or try to pat the dog
Move slowly and confidently around dogs
Always treat dogs kindly and gently
Leave dogs alone when they 're eat ing or sleeping (just like you don't like being bugged when you're eating or sleeping)
Police dogs are dogs that are specailly trained to help police and other government agencies like the customs service. They have 9 months of training which is broken up into three, three month blocks. The first block of training is Basic Obenience and Simple Tracking. The second block is Advanced Tracking, Obedience and Agility (using an obstical course). The third block is more Advanced Tracking and Team Work.
A police dog and handler train and work as a team, and must trust one another because they often work under extreme pressure in dangerous situations.
Police dogs are friendly animals, but don’t go up to a police dog while it's on duty and ask their handler if you can pat or play with them because they 're working dogs.
In some countries police dog units are known as 'K9 Units' but in New Zealand police dogs are called ‘Delta Units'.
Police dogs are NOT vicious animals. Police dogs are are trained to enjoy their work, with chasing and grabbing introduced to them as tricks or games when they are puppies. These games can only be ‘played’ when a dog handler gives the command to the dog.
A police dog's goal is NOT to bite; it is to grab and hold on at all costs until the handler gives the release command.
Most police dogs live with their handlers, in their handler's home and mix with their handler's family and friends to make sure that they stay friendly animals.
In some countries police dogs are issued with bulletproof vests and booties to protect their feet when glass or rubble is on the ground.
Police dogs are used to track,apprehend and search for a variety of people or objects like drugs or explosives depending on what is required.
Dogs have nearly 220 million smell-sensitive cells over an area about the size of a handkerchief which is lot when comapred to a human who has 5million over the area of roughly a postage stamp.
Dogs can distinguish two different types of scents when trailing somebody or something. The first is an air scent from some person or thing that has recently passed by. The second is a scent along the ground that remains detectable for much longer than the scent in the air.
It is believed that dogs became domestic animals at least over 15,000 years ago,orginally they descented from Wolves.
The New Zealand Police service has 21 dog sections ranging from Whangarei to Invercargill. *
In September 1956, Sergeant Frank Riley of the Surrey Constabulary (in England) travelled half way around the world in a sailing ship to set up New Zealand's first Policfe dog unit. The Prime Minsiter at the time, Sid Holland, had seen the police dog unit in Surry when he'd visited England and had decided that we should have something similar in New Zealand.
Sergeant Riley arrived with his fully-trained police dog Miska, a nine-monthold dog named Dante, two female dogs called Karen and Silver and twelve two-month-old puppies that were born during the voyage to New Zealand. Constable Colin Guppy was Dante's handler and he and Sergentn Riley became New Zealand's first police dog handlers.
* Figures from the New Zealand Police Website