Training Day!! 

- pictures and story by Lou-Anne Hunt

 

For Harry, Maverick, Max, and Beezel, training day comes once a week!

   

The Windsor Police Service Canine Unit is known for some of the most obedient dogs.  A title well earned after watching this team go through their exercises on training day!

To these dogs, training day not only practices and reinforces the skills required for a busy job, it also provides the dog and handler the opportunity to bond! 

"The dog thinks it's play time.  These exercises are all about the award.  The dogs know what they have to do and are being trained to work towards the ultimate goal - receiving their reward"

Information about the Canine Team can be found on our website in the Just for kids section - Our police dogs. 

On this day, the team will train the dogs in box searches.  Six large wooden boxes are spaced and placed randomly in a field.  The handlers must first sit inside the 5ft X 5ft boxes to warm them up and leave a scent to enable the dogs to track.

As the officers are warming up the boxes, the dogs are barking with excitement while in the Canine Unit trucks, waiting to be taken to the field for their training. 

Once in the field, the handler sets up the dog and tells them to search the boxes.  It's amazing how some of the dogs search each box before finding the occupied box and some of the dogs go directly to the occupied box upon being unleashed. 

The suspect (in this case, the training officer) is told to reveal themselves and come out of the space.  The dog is immediately rewarded and the exercise begins again.  Each dog will run through this exercise three or four times before moving on to the next exercise.

In the next training exercise, one Officer will run from the dog.  The dog's partner will yell for the running Officer to stop.  As the running Officer stops and holds up his arms as a suspect would, the dog's partner will call off his dog.  The dog will not jump, lunge, or bite the running Officer but will stay close to him barking until his partner arrives to retrieve him.

This exercise is very important and is practiced faithfully.  Because of this weekly exercise, Windsor Police Service can boast about the low number of biting incidents.  Many other police services will not train their canine units without full protective equipment.  Because the Windsor Police Canine are so obedient, weekly training is done without this gear.