Police Kennel Division to tackle crime

By Shanika Sriyananda

Grero, the ‘Police Detective’ was in the news last week with nabbing the main suspect of the murder case in Beruwala.

Though the German Shepherd is barely two-years-old, he has already proved his ‘mettle’ in busting crimes.His track record made him shine among the Police dogs who are clever in nabbing murderers and narcotic smugglers.

Kora, Rover, Rosa are among the best narcotic sniffers while Grero, Ronney, Berty are the intelligent crime detectives of the Police who set a number of records.

Grero, bearing number 1,115, is a well trained crime detective dog of the Sri Lanka Police. He is now deployed in the Horana Police station.

It was a sunny day when the Sunday Observer visited their training hub - the Police Kennel Division - in serene and cool Asgiriya in Kandy.

He is Bosco, which was anxiously waited for the command. With sharp bright eyes, the animal adjusted his position while demonstrators aggressively shouted their slogans.

The demonstrators ignored the police squad's orders warning them to stay back.

Bosco, the last resort to keep the rioters at bay, became aggressive. The situation got intense.

“Attack,” Police Sgt. A.S. Dissanayake said. The dog barked at his highest pitch to scare the crowd and when an aggressor suspected of being the leader stepped forward, ignoring Bosco, the dog jumped on the man and pulled him down.

“Get back,” Dissanayake ordered the crowd. With the final command, Bosco sat while continuing to bark at the man as police officers apprehended him.

The crowd dispersed.

This is a scene from the real-time training session held at the Division.

Bosco, the two and half-year-old German shepherd purchased from the Netherlands, is undergoing a new training component - crowd control, the latest feature added to the police dogs’ training.

Four dogs among the 239 at the Division are scheduled for crowd control training, introduced to the Service September, 2012.

“This is a duty done by the patrol dogs in other Western countries like U.K., U.S.A. and the European Union countries. There is a need to train dogs for crowd control in the post-terror scenario, in which there will be more demonstrations and trade union actions on various issues. We want our dogs to be ready for such situations,” Superintendent of Police Sisira Weerakoon, Director of the Police Kennel Division said.

He said humans love dogs but at the same time they are afraid of them.

“We want to use dogs instead of using instrumental tactics like spraying rubber bullets and throwing tear gas in an aggressive riot situation to control the crowd,” he said.

The four dogs share the same handler and will undergo a six-month crowd control training regimen to supplement other specialities, including tracking, explosive and narcotic detection, and patrolling.

“We have plans to train more dogs for crowd control,” he said, adding that fewer injuries result when dogs are used to control rioters.

Bosco at a crowd control training

Sniffing for clues

Bosco waiting for the command

However, following directions of the Inspector General of Police N.K. Illangakoon and Senior DIG Central Province H.N.B. Abanwala, training dogs on crime busting and nabbing narcotic smugglers have increased with the growing incidents on crimes and narcotics.

“We use latest techniques in crime and narcotic detections”, said SP Weerakoon.

The Police Kennel unit was established in Colombo in 1948 with two German shepherds named Rex and Sheeba. With Officer in Charge O.N.O Schokman, three handlers also were trained to train the two dogs sold by two expatriates.

Because the cool climate is ideal for dogs and the location of Sri Lanka's only veterinary facility in Kandy, the unit was moved to Asgiriya in Kandy in 1949.

More than 1,190 dogs have been trained at the Police Kennel division for crime, explosive and narcotic detections, patrolling and VIP security since the division's inception.

With more than 54 Kennel Divisions in Sri Lanka, the dogs are imported and locally bred. Newly recruited dogs select for training are among 23 breeds including German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, Dalmatians, Cocker spaniels, Rottweilers, Belgian Malinois and Alaskan malamutes.

Nine-month-old puppies, the recommended age for training, are tested for 22 drives such as retrieving, hunting, preying, train ability and obedience.

“All dogs can't get into the police service. The dogs will be selected following the dog selection test and we go through their pedigree before the selection,” said Weerakoon, a police officer with 15 years of experience in dog handling.

In 2012, after checking more than 260 dogs for their best drives, Weerakoon bought 100 dogs from the Netherlands for the division.

After an initial six months of training, mainly to build up bonds between dogs and handlers, the canines will be categorized for their capabilities.

After training, each dog receives a certificate recognised by the courts.

Under the country's Evidence Ordinance, the detection report of a dog is accepted as evidence in criminal cases.

Weerakoon said the police dogs on VIP patrols are attached to the President's Security Division, Ministerial Security Division, Special Task Force, airport and the Parliament.

A handler is not allowed to take a dog home. The dogs remain in a kennel overnight. The love, care and attention a handler gives a dog are important to create a strong bond that will help the dog perform well in busting crimes, according to officials.

The handlers also are tested for two abilities - voice and feelings. “The handler needs to have good commanding voices. He should have a voice with CCPPA, which means command, correction, praise, permissiveness and agitativeness. It is essential for a handler to have a feeling for dogs to understand each other,” Weerakoon said.

He said the dogs know the body and command languages of the handlers, but in special duties including crowd control the command language is unique to each handler as dogs are trained to react to only particular words.

“We teach the dogs only to apprehend the leader of the rioters and also not to bite to make any injuries. When a demonstration turns in to an aggressive nature, the handler will give the command to dogs but they will still be chained,” Weerakoon said. The police dogs are trained only to prey the target. In 2008, during the height of the final battle with the LTTE, the police dog Tina detected a van carrying 11 kilograms of C4 explosives, two suicide jackets, remote controls, and clamour mines. The rebels, knowing that a police dog was deployed at the strategically important road block at Medawachchiya, had hidden a parcel of mutton near the haul of explosives to mislead the dog.

But Tina detected her prey and was able to prevent yet another terrorist attack.

German shepherd Flora, trained by Police Constable Thushara Munidasa, has proven her talent by detecting narcotics in only eight months. She has been able to nab narcotic smugglers in the Anuradhapura district, in the northern part of the country, where she is deployed.

The dogs have contributed significantly in crime detection. In 2012 the dogs assisted in more than 13,000 cases of explosives and VIP checks, and in 2011 the number exceeded 15,000.

The narcotic detections carried out by the police dogs account for 761 in 2012 and 450 in 2011.

The police dogs don't receive medals or promotions for their work but do get a gentle touch, an appreciative “good girl or boy” and sometimes even a hug from their handlers.

The bond between Sri Lankan Police corps and dogs reminded the small note written by a handler of the Plymouth Police Working Dog Foundation. Kaiser, the two-year-old German Shepard died of severe kidney disease.

“R.I.P. my boy. I could not have asked for a better partner or friend. May you rest easy and wait for me at the sacred bridge,” - Officer Jamie Lebretton, the dog's main handler.