WGWL - Page 23

Because in dear old England the lab follows the scent back to council cottage with a bunch of unarmed dole recipients inside crying into a cup of Earl Grey tea watching the English cricket team losing yet another world series test match.

Across the pond in Detroit the mal follows the scent to the crack house full of wall to wall automatic assault rifles, and a bunch of hardcore cop killers with no options.

agree with you partially hundmutter, single purpose can be better equipped dog but problem is that most policecars take one dog only so its easyer to have multi purpose dog, instead of driving around with patroldog and when needit call in a detectiondog, but sure enough still will happen as you cannot use narc dog for explo or other way around so you would need to call in a dog every now and then

Duke, two cages can fit in the one police car rear over here ! Our handlers take both dogs on patrol.
Many specialist scent dogs now trained for more than one target; will find e.g. both drug stash and money. Some even do both drugs and explosives, it IS possible (even though have seen it said on here that they cannot) - perhaps that is the value in using a specialist scenting breed rather than the jack-of-all-trades 'shepherding' breeds ?

Pete, you really think our dole-ites can afford Earl Grey ?

And drugs dogs do not 'follow' scent anywhere ... police bust your door down, then let the spaniel rampage around your house finding whatever you have hidden away.

Just goes to show how other countries procedures do not get recognised on this American-centric forum !  For shame, OZ, I thought your LE practices were still more like ours than the yanks ... no ?

A dual purpose dog mostly is cheaper than 2 single purpose dogs

- purchase price, food, vet
- one handler has to deal with one canine only
- kennel or home for one dog, not for 2

Most often a single purpose dog is better than a dual purpose dog, and places like airports or customs don´t even want aggression in their detection dogs (liability).

"Dual purpose" dogs mostly are for the small police departments that neither have the money nor the handlers ( or even the need ) to own more than one or two dogs.

Re airport & customs search dogs: for a long time here, this hasn't been a police function at all, but a Customs & Excise Dept responsibilty; they have a variety of non-threatening breeds including B Collies, Pointers etc, as well as the ever present labs and spaniels. Operational general purpose Police dogs (usually GSDs) will be brought into ports & airfields as necessary, where people are some threat & may need detaining; as would armed human officers. But they are not doing the day to day searches of travellers.

If some people are breeding GSD and other powerful working breeds more for their guarding / holding capabilities for LE (never mind PP or sports) then they are inevitably skewering at least a proportion of the breed (s) away from the 'good at everything' patrol dog, towards a harder animal.

All the more reason, then, that I am not being 'elitist' but pragmatic & practical when I suggest these breeds need experienced owners / handlers, always - not silly little people who
have no idea what they are doing, exagerate and dramatise handling issues they don't understand, slag off everybody involved in breeding the dogs, very possibly with no evidence or grounds for complaint, and would be better off with a handbag Chi or even a stuffed toy dog !
JMHO.

As far as British Police Dog Sections are concerned, the two-dog scenario is, I believe, almost univeral now, around the 62 (?) UK Forces; presumably it is cost-effective or they wouldn't do it that way. Costs are saved through the number of handler and (2)dog teams they have available on shift; if they are desperate to save money, they put less teams on to cover more ground.

"cover more ground" all of England is only 10 square foot of ground. I have a broken knee and I could cover the entire country in 20 minutes carrying my dog on my back.

 

The English turned the lights out and the Luftwaffe missed the whole dam country - unfortunately.

There is a reason why Corgi's only need 2 inch legs.

ignorant......but funny

How right you are duke