NSW Police Dog Unit, Menai
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday February 25, 2010
Dugald Jellie meets the long paws of the law who have big, wet noses for trouble. P. D. George is a four-year-old Rottweiler with droopy ears and long whiskers. This is a face of the constabulary only a mother could love. He bears fangs. His yap is ear-splitting. "Not a happy dog," says a kennel attendant. "Wouldn't want to meet him down a dark alley at night." Not this puppy. Not even if you're firmly on the right side of the law.The rottie is part of the NSW Police Dog Unit, first formed in 1932 and now made up of 89 trained canines who are called upon to do the sniff work on the criminal underbelly - illicit drugs, explosives, missing stiffs, miscreants on the lam, unruly crowds. Most are German shepherds but there are also Labradors, a lone Belgian malinois ... and George."The dogs help reduce crime but also effect arrests that a police officer mightn't be capable of doing," says the squad's commander, Julie Middlemiss, a detective superintendent with a pet Jack Russell at home. At work, she's in charge of the unit's 83 dog handlers, support staff and a pack of hounds with a nose for explosive situations (that is, nitroglycerine) and a reputation as party animals. They're often at nightclubs. In the crowd. Sniffing out drugs.The pooches are usually kept in kennels at the homes of their handlers, with trainee dogs and any strays housed here at the lock-up of the dog unit's HQ. It's on the southern edge of Sydney, at Menai, and isn't hard to find once you spot all the police panel wagons, each with large, black letters on the bonnet that read: "DOG". Stand downwind and it smells a bit whiffy. And then there's the incessant barking. Twenty-eight mutts are cooped up at the complex now and they don't seem pleased to see us. Maybe it's the notebook. German shepherds snarl, raise their muzzles and bark. I step back, thankful for the steel mesh between us. "General-purpose dogs need to be very bold, very fearless, very well socialised and have a strong presence and stature," says Middlemiss. "It's no place for poodles."German shepherds are the rank and file of the force's 45 frontline general-purpose dogs, dispatched to tasks ranging from helping to quell antisocial behaviour to tracking alleged law breakers. "They're trained to take hold of an offender's appendage," says Middlemiss. "Usually that's an arm. And they won't let go until the handler gives a command."Clipboards affixed on kennel doors identify each dog, their food requirements and any other particulars. Names such as Scar, Crunch, Bernie and Marvin are mostly prefixed with "P. D." (police dog). There's a blonde Labrador called Unity who's a "D. D. D.", a drug detection dog, purchased from Customs but trained here by inhaling narcotic odours. Further along there's "B. D. Amore", whose instructions are marked in red: "IN SEASON - RUN SOLO". She's an English lass, bought from Scotland Yard as a breeder. "We'll mate her with a working police dog," says Mechelle Sahyoun, whose title - puppy-raising co-ordinator - sounds like a childhood dream. "We're after bloodlines that produce hyperactive, boisterous and very confident dogs with a high desire to chase and hunt. They're bred for work, not for show."The kennels also house two cadaver detection dogs and a chocolate-coloured Labrador called Apple who detects firearms and explosives. Nobody said this wasn't dog's work with inherent risks. "In the past four years we've had three killed in operational situations," says Middlemiss. Two were stabbed. Each is insured for $65,000. "But for police dog handlers," she says, "there's no true price you can put on the value of a dog."
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