Cleveland Police have 15 general purpose dogs available for a number of operational duties. Training a police dog takes around 13 weeks and starts when it is around 12 to 18 months old. The dogs live with their handlers and can work with the police for up to 7 years working on a number of tasks such as:
- Tracking offenders from crime scenes
- Searching for missing people
- Searching premises
- Football match duties
- Finding drugs
- Finding explosives
- Firearms support
General Purpose Dogs
- General purpose dogs include the German Shepherd and Belgian Shepherd breeds.
- Dogs can reach a top speed of 30mph.
- They are trained to detain a person by holding on to the arm.
- If a suspect should stop running and give himself up, police dogs are trained to ‘stand off’ and will contain the suspect and prevent escape by barking.
Specialist Dogs (drug detection)
- Specialist dog breeds include Cocker Spaniel, English Springer Spaniel, Labrador and Labrador/Spaniel cross
- Trained to detect a number of substances
- Additionally some dogs are trained to locate weapons or cash
