Ajman: Dogs from the Ajman Police Canine Division (K-9) were involved in 360 police operations in 2013 and 260 since the beginning of this year.
Due to their speed and flexibility, dogs can often crawl or jump into places where it would be impractical or impossible for police officers to go. They can swiftly locate drugs, missing persons, runaway criminals, explosives, stolen items and also search for dead bodies in cases of disasters.
Highly trained police dogs are also used for guard duties, tracking, at crime scenes and as part of investigations into the causes of fires.
The division is on call 24/7 with 28 dogs and 11 trainers.
Hundreds of cases have been solved in Ajman with the aid of police dogs, officials at the K-9 wing told Gulf News.
Police officers rely on the dogs’ highly evolved sense of smell, which is more than fifty times as sharp as that of humans.
Lieutenant Saif Obaid Al Al Shamsi, Director of the Ajman Police Canine Division, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview how the K-9 name had come to be. He said it was derived from the name for teeth synonymous with canines. The change also took into account the internationally recognised K-9 name in relation to police dogs.
“They are our most trusted partners in preventing and solving crime,” Al Shamsi said. “They assist us to solve several cases that wouldn’t have been solved by the most intelligent human. They also save us countless man hours. The division plays a great role in maintaining the safety of Ajman’s society.”
He said that apart from the division’s police and investigative work, the division also provides the public with information on how to train and take care of dogs.
Al Shamsi emphasised the division’s role in criminal investigations noting that the K-9 division had recorded multiple achievements during the year.
Al Shamsi said that the division imports the dogs from specialised farms in Europe. German Shepherds, Malinois, Labradors, and Golden Retrievers have proven to be the most capable dogs in terms of police duties.
“Most of the dogs at the K-9 division are bred at the dog breeding branch but some of them are imported from countries known to have excellent dog breeds,” Al Shamsi said. “The imported dogs take two weeks training to start police missions. A trainer is also assigned to the dog [one trainer may be assigned to more than one dog] with a three to six months specialised training plan.”
Some specialised training routines took one year, like sniffing and tracking. The specialisation plan is chosen according to the K-9 division’s need at the given time, he said.
“The dogs are trained specifically on the basic tasks they are enrolled to perform. An explosive-sniffing dog looks for explosives and a detection dog looks for drugs,” Al Shamsi said.
“The trainers follow European training techniques, especially German and Dutch,” he said.
As for the dog trainers, Al Shamsi said not anyone can be a dog trainer, which is why certain basic qualities have to be taken into account for one to be recruited.
Al Shamsi explained that they are first chosen in an interview process, based on the availability of certain characteristics such as patience, tolerance, hard work and perseverance, and then they are trained to be dog trainers.
The dogs are well taken care of, Al Shamsi said.
“There a special health care section for the dogs, were each dog’s records are on file. Veterinarians conduct daily, weekly and monthly checkups for each dog.”
The dogs are fed a balanced diet and, should one get unwell, the veterinarian grants it a sick leave and exempts it from work, until it recovers.
The various K-9 training fields at Ajman Police are fully equipped to enable the latest training techniques for dogs and their trainers.
Security duties
The Ajman Police canine division (K-9) has two buildings with a capacity for 39 dogs.
The Ajman Police canine division (K-9) helps in ensuring maximum security and safety. Ajman Police use this unit to secure playgrounds, VIP conferences and meetings besides night patrolling to secure the Ajman Punitive and Rehabilitation Centre.
Retirement
Police dogs are retired if they become injured to the extent that they are unlikely to recover completely, are pregnant or raising puppies, or are too old or sick to continue working. Since many dogs are raised in working environments for the first year of their life and retired before they become unable to perform, the working life of a dog is 8–9 years.
If these dogs are killed in the line of duty, they get the same honours as their human partners. The trainer makes all the decisions regarding a K-9 partner.
Sometimes, police give the older dogs to other people after considering requests. Such dogs are used to guard farms or other tasks.
Training sessions
A training session on tracking hidden explosives was held recently for the first time in Ajman and was attended by all dog trainers in the country.
