Raising a hard-working police dog

FORCING the canine police into a confession appeared to be impossible.

“We have to believe that all the puppies we’re raising are going to become police dogs,” said Cpl Shane Chase, the head trainer of the police Canine Section’s dogs. He is also in charge of the section’s new puppy-raising programme.

“We can’t have a favourite puppy. We love them all,” Chase insisted.

All the canine officers in the puppy programme nodded in agreement – but when Ati appeared, wrapped in Cpl Premnath Maharaj’s arms, they caved.

“We all love Ati. She is a survivor,” they said.

“She has real fight,” said WPC Caren Moreau.

At first glance, Ati appears the most unlikely choice for a favourite police-dog puppy. The weakest and smallest of Brixa and Tony’s ten surviving Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd mixed puppies, Ati drifts on weakened hind legs when she walks.

The puppies, all brown with black faces – except for Ashes, who is all black – breezed through training at eight weeks old, with the exception of Ati, who is on sick leave as she recovers from the parvovirus.

The puppies climb steep wooden steps and gleefully jump into a box filled with noisy, empty water bottles. The males (Apollo, Ammo, Alpha, Arrow and Axel) and the girls (Aniva, Ava, Ashes and Anya) work with hand signals. When a clicker marks the completion of a task, the puppies gobble down their reward: a few kernels of dog chow.

A team of canine officers including WPCs Moreau and Melissa Pierre and Maharaj care for and train the A-puppies. The scene unfolding is new and full of promise, and yet it feels familiar and rooted in history. The police raised puppies to be working dogs since the 1960s. Some, like ANZAC, Andy and Adolph, had exciting careers, but a proper infrastructure was never in place for a successful programme.

Now, the canine section has a resident vet, Dr Anil Ramnanan, and a second puppy team of PC Roger Boodoo, Cpl Titus Worrell and PC Saadiq Hosein.

All of the officers on the puppy team have dogs who have either died or retired. Their next working dog will come from these puppies. But Boodoo, who is studying law, said, “I want to remain in the puppy and dog training programme. This is my passion, and my plan for my career.”

“Police Commissioner Gary Griffith had the idea of raising puppies because of restrictions on importing dogs due to the difficulty of importing dogs during covid19,” said Geoffrey Hospedales, superintendent of the Mounted and Canine Branch.

“We put bio-securities in place that included cleaning surfaces with bleach and foot dips for officers entering the kennels,” said Ramnanan, talking about the initial stages of the programme.

Ramnanan was mindful of the environment.

“Flies, cats and wildlife carry the parvovirus (a life-threatening gastroenteritis that is often fatal in puppies) and the pups were in kennels near an open field,” he said.

On the day Worrell opened the kennel door for a routine feed of Brixa’s 11 puppies and noted a lethargic puppy with no appetite, he immediately made a report to Chase, who made an emergency call to Ramnanan. When the vet arrived and did tests, the officers had their worst fears confirmed: the puppies had parvovirus.

“We set up a hospital at the Cumuto kennels,” said Ramanan. The puppies were put on IVs.”

“We knew something serious was going on,” said Hosein.

“We were sad and fearful. We didn’t want to lose any puppies. It was a trying time,” said Worrell.

For three weeks, the puppy team worked 24-hour shifts with little or no sleep. They administered medication, hydrated puppies orally with syringes and injected saline solutions into the puppies’ rectums every hour.

“We set our alarm clocks in case we dozed off,” said Maharaj.

When one puppy, who had not yet been named, died, the officers were stunned.

“When I left my shift, that puppy was not that ill,” said Worrell. “We never expected him to die, so that was a shock. Then we were really scared. We now realised anything could happen.”

Ati was the second puppy to fall ill.

“Her condition wasn’t so hopeful,” recalled Worrell. “She was skin and bones. The expectations for her to live were low, but when we came in her kennel with a hose to clean, she tried to hang onto the hose.

“Her motivation lifted our spirits. She fought hard to live. She became our shining light.”

As the puppies improved, officers soaked their dog chow with tinned meat, blended it and fed the dogs with a syringe every hour.

“Cpl Chase really marshalled his troops to get the puppies through this disaster,” said Ramnanan.

Brixa’s puppies' health steadily improved, and the puppy programme expected its second litter of puppies from WPC Melissa Narine’s German Shepherd Adina and Tino, also a German Shepherd. At 5.05 a.m. on Christmas morning, Adina delivered her first puppy. She had a long, painful, 12-hour labour, and when her fourth puppy was stillborn, Ramnanan opted for a C-section.

“It was one of the most difficult, painful, sad and tiring duties I ever had,” Narine said. “I was a bit relieved when it was decided she would have a caesarean, but I was scared too.”

Five of Adina’s eight puppies survived and were put in a fly-proof, air-conditioned room with restricted access. Officers dressed like doctors in medical scrubs to enter the room. Worrell, who is also a welder, transformed the room into what officers hoped would be a parvovirus-proof, puppy sanctuary with soothing classical music piped in 24 hours a day.

On February 12, the canine police welcomed its third litter of puppies when Daliah, a German Shorthaired Pointer, belonging to the prison service, delivered ten puppies. The father, Choco, of the same breed, is a police dog. The puppies will be split between prisons and the police.

There are currently about ten police dogs heading towards retirement, and new recruits are arriving, so puppies are in demand.

By nine months, puppies will have a single handler and train together until the dog starts to work at 18 months. The puppies will undergo physical tests to assess their hips and spines; kidney and liver function. Once deemed fit to be police dogs, they will then participate in 12-week certification programme with their handlers.

Ramanan believes that at least 80 per cent of the puppies will make it as police dogs, because their parents were chosen for 12 traits, which include agility, speed, temperament, drive, prey drive, bite and disease resistance.

“Breeding dogs locally will have many advantages. They will be more disease-resistant to endemic diseases like tick fever,” said Ramnanan.

“It has all been an exciting experience. Now we have to concentrate on training,” said Lopez.

On the morning of February 5, 2021, Brixa’s puppies hit another milestone when all except for Ati, who had not yet had her last parvo shot, ran onto the grass for the first time. Some found a piece of cloth to play tug-of-war. Some walked gingerly while they figured out the new surface; one investigated what was under the grass; and one chased a police recruit all over the field, ripping his pants with his tiny, razor-like teeth whenever he caught the officer.

Maharaj laughed at the puppies' antics. “This is the future,” he said.