Delta Police First In Canada To Hire Therapy Dog

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Law Enforcement, News, Service Dogs, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Emily Jackson, Vancouver Sun

Delta police department’s latest canine recruit is more likely to lick than growl.

The two-year-old male yellow Lab, the first police therapy dog in Canada, started six weeks of on-the-job training Monday, said Delta police spokeswoman Sgt. Sharlene Brooks.

Adding a dog to the department’s victim services team is a new approach to helping people in traumatic situations, Brooks said.

The four-legged therapist will offer support and reassurance for “excessively emotional” people, she said.

A dog’s presence can help children and people with disabilities calm down and communicate, Brooks added.

To read the rest click here.

Dogs To Help Sniff Out TN Inmates’ Cell Phones

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Law Enforcement, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Brian Haas for The Tennessean

As prison inmates increasingly run criminal enterprises, order hits and direct drug dealing from behind bars, state corrections officials are turning to a new weapon: dogs.

The Tennessee Department of Correction plans to train three drug-sniffing dogs to add cell phones to their olfactory arsenals in a growing war against prison contraband. Nationwide, prisons and jails have struggled to stop inmates from sneaking in cell phones and continuing to commit crimes while imprisoned.

“We probably will find one at least once a week here, sometimes more often,” said Ricky Bell, warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, a prison that hosts Tennessee’s most dangerous inmates. “We get reports from people in the community that they’re getting threatening phone calls. That happens pretty often.”

In the last year alone, Tennessee corrections officers confiscated 1,684 cell phones at 12 state prisons. Other states report a similarly growing problem. Despite regular searches of inmates, their rooms and even their visitors, the phones still find their way to inmates’ hands. Corrections officers are not allowed to carry phones with them.

Sometimes, a friend or family member will toss a phone over a fence to an awaiting prisoner. Others use less comfortable methods.

To read the rest click here.

Dog Teams Seek A Hidden Enemy In Afghan War

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Government, Military, News, Service Dogs, Training, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By William M. Welch for USA TODAY

KABUL — In the struggle to bring peace to Afghanistan, few can claim a more dangerous job than the one Betty and Jimmy are preparing for.

Friendly and eager young German shepherd dogs, they are being trained to search for the remnants of war — hidden land mines and unexploded bombs.

Not only do unseen explosives kill military troops, they take a heavy toll on the innocent. More than 700 civilians are killed or maimed annually in Afghanistan, over half of them children, says the International Committee to Ban Landmines.

NATO and U.S. forces fighting the Taliban jihadist movement do not use mines. But the Taliban does, and so did former occupiers of Afghanistan such as the Soviet Union.

To read the rest click here.

Feds Want More Bomb-Sniffing Dogs To Protect Travelers

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Law Enforcement, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Tom Fontaine for The Pittsburgh Tribune – Review

The Transportation Security Administration wants to increase the role dogs play in sniffing out terror threats at U.S. airports and other mass transit systems.

The TSA requested $71 million from Congress to train and deploy 275 explosives detection canine teams — bomb dogs and their handlers — at transportation facilities. The agency has 700 teams, including five at Pittsburgh International Airport.

“The teams have proven to be a very reliable, effective and flexible layer of security,” said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis.

Davis could not say whether Pittsburgh International would be in line for more dogs if the agency gets the money.

Allegheny County police have maintained airport bomb dogs since 1973. Since 9/11, however, the TSA has supplied them and covered many related expenses, providing as much as $50,000 a year per dog to county police, Davis said.

To read the rest Click here.

Missing Santa Rosa, California Police Dog Found In Windsor

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Law Enforcement, Missing, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Randi Rossmann for The Press Democrat

Taz, a Santa Rosa police dog, heard the repeated booms and crackles of fireworks Sunday night and probably thought it was gunfire.

That’s when he bolted from his yard and leaped two fences to get to work.

But his partner, Santa Rosa police officer Mike Clark, was with his family at a Fourth of July barbecue and wasn’t there to guide him, a chagrined Clark said Monday.

The four-year-old, 70-pound Belgian Malinois wandered Windsor all night. He ran his paws and nails down and developed a limp before he was found Monday morning and reunited with a grateful and relieved Clark.

The officer also was exhausted as he too wandered Windsor all night, along with several other law enforcement officers and friends, in a painful and unsuccessful search for the valuable dog.

To read the rest click here.

Attack Creates Worries In West About Sheep Dogs

Admin: Kenn Bell

Categories: Animal Control, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Michael J. Crumb For The Associated Press

Two sheep dogs’ attack on a Colorado mountain biker has prompted ranchers in the West to seek better ways to manage the large dogs that protect their herds against predators.

The American Sheep Industry Association has been working with state groups and federal agencies to address the problem as more people make their way into once-remote areas where sheep graze. With more hiking and biking trails being cut through public lands the federal government leases to ranchers, sheep herders and outdoors enthusiasts say it’s a problem that has become more urgent.

“We have more and more dogs in use and more and more encroachment into traditional agricultural areas, and we’re running into the need for more management of our dogs and education for the public as to why the dogs are there and what they do,” said Peter Orwick, executive director of the American Sheep Industry Association.

The dogs, typically Great Pyrenees, protect sheep against coyotes, mountain lions and bears and have become more common since the 1970s and 80s, when the government banned traps and poisons as ways to control predators.

To read the rest click here.

Dog Sniffs Out 23 Pounds Of Opium In One Week At O’Hare

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Law Enforcement, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

A U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection Officer working with his trusty drug-sniffing dog Rambo uncovered over 23 pounds of opium at the Chicago O’Hare Foreign Mail Facility.

All 23 pounds of opium were concealed in various ways according to a release from the Chicago CBP office. Rambo was able to alert officers to six separate shipments of opium while screening international mail. The release stated that the opium was cleverly disguised in soaked wooden twigs and in mushrooms.

“The olfactory acuity of a CBP K-9, in other words its sense of smell, is 100 times greater than that of human beings,” David Murphy of CBP said in the release. “With that said, these live low-tech capabilities we receive benefit of from our canine teams have stood the test of time and proven itself time and time again as one of the best weapons we have against drug smuggling…”

Looks like Rambo is a hit at O’Hare! Good boy!

Students Get Visit From Search Dog They Made Book About

Admin: Kenn Bell

Categories: Books, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Eric Louie For The Contra Costa Times

Alamo, CA — Pearl, the once homeless search and rescue dog whose story was turned into a children’s book by Rancho Romero Elementary students, visited the Alamo school Tuesday.

She was accompanied by her handler, Ron Horetski, a captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Pearl is one of six search-and-rescue dogs on the California Task Force 2 urban search and rescue team, and helped after this year’s devastating earthquake in Haiti. She marked where there were signs of life under collapsed buildings so others could make rescues.

Longtime classroom volunteer Allyn Lee, who had a daughter in second-grade teacher Connie Forslind’s class, wrote the book “A New Job for Pearl.” Students drew the illustrations. Lee’s research led her to the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation and information about Pearl, a 3-year-old black Labrador retriever. Pearl had been living in an animal shelter after running away many times before being adopted to become a search dog. The story explains how she was energetic and athletic, not good qualities for someone who wanted a calm pet but good qualities for a search dog.

The class made 3,000 copies of the book, about 1,500 of which were bought by the search dog foundation. The goal is to sell the remaining books to raise $10,000 for the foundation — the cost of training one dog.

Lee had worked with Forslind’s previous second-grade classes and created two other books based on animals helping out after disasters — one after the 2004 tsunami in Asia and the other after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina — but this was the first based on a true story.

To get a copy of “A New Job for Pearl,” which sells for a $10 donation, call Lee at 925-588-8180.

Man Gets 6+ Years For Stabbing Police Dog

Admin: Kenn Bell

Categories: Law Enforcement, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

Worst Police Dog In The World?

Admin: Kenn Bell

Categories: Fun Videos, Law Enforcement, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

Worst Police Dog In The World? Maybe, but we still love him!

– Kenn

Heroic Dogs Of Wartime London

Admin: Kenn Bell

Categories: History, News, Working Dogs, World

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

From The BBC

Seventy years after World War II, the People’s Dispensary For Sick Animals in Britain is commemorating seven dogs who helped rescue hundreds from the rubble of wartime London.

To see all the incredible photographs click here.

UPDATE: Army Dog Is Found At Dulles

Admin: Melody Chen

Categories: Military, News, Working Dogs

Click to join our Facebook Fan Page and follow us on Twitter!

By Lori Aratani for The Washington Post

UPDATE, 5:04 p.m.: Qondor has been found. The dog was found at about 3 and reunited with his owner. They were scheduled to depart on a 5:15 flight.

Original post: A Norwegian Army patrol dog somehow escaped his crate before a flight at Dulles International Airport, and has been spotted running around the more than 12,000 acres of ground at the complex, NBC 4 reports.

Qondor, a 21-month-old Doberman, is a specialist in the Norwegian Army. He focuses on patrols and is being trained in explosives detection.

Qondor and his handler, Captain Gunn Anita Fossli, flew into Dulles last Wednesday for a dog training course in northern Virginia.

Their original flight back to Norway was canceled because of the volcano in Iceland. On Wednesday night they were offered a flight on Iberia Airlines. That was the last time Fossli saw her dog.

He somehow escaped from his crate at about 10 p.m.

Airport officials drove Fossli around to the places Qondor was spotted Wednesday night, but “they weren’t willing to do more than that,” Fossli said of Dulles officials. “It was dark and the fog was coming.”

“I don’t really understand why he was able to escape,” Fossli said. “His crate is OK. I’m really very worried about what will happen if I can’t find him now.”

There was a glimmer of hope Thursday morning. Fossli and airport officials drove around the southern end of the airport and spotted Qondor. They weren’t able to catch him, however.

Officials said they don’t believe the dog will be in any danger in that area, and they said no flights are expected to be delayed because of the search.