Cornwall, Devon and Dorset Police Dog Section: Sasha's new pups, visiting the Devon County Show and Rika and Lenny's police dog course progress.

In this blog update:

Sasha and her 9 pups are all doing well
Bevan, Bob, Bernie and Billy all enjoy their visit to the Devon County Show
Rika and Lenny complete week 3 of their initial police dog course

Tuesday 24th May 2016, Sasha has 9 healthy pups

After a very restless night on Monday 23rd of May Sasha finally started whelping with her first pup arriving at 1035 on Tuesday morning. For such a young maiden bitch she was extremely calm and relaxed about the situation.

By 1225 she had 3 pups but nothing else happened for nearly 3 hours after that. Sasha seemed extremely tired and so I called our vet Clive who gave her an injection of the hormone Oxytocin to help her with her contractions.

By 5.15pm 7 pups had been born without too much difficulty and we thought that was it.

However at 7 pm our vet came out again to check everything was okay and an examination revealed there was at least one more pup inside Sasha.

Another injection of Oxytocin was administered and she very quickly had 2 more pups making a total of 9 pups consisting of 3 boys and 6 girls.

Although I wished she hadn’t had quite so many pups to deal with she coped very well taking everything in her stride.

Here the pups are a couple of days later having a feed from mum and you can see how relaxed the pups and mum are.

Here they all are sleeping after their feed.

Sasha has been very attentive and relaxed which together with the excellent milk she is obviously producing is making for thoroughly contented and quiet pups.

She is pictured here in the whelping box keeping an eye on everyone.

Outside the whelping box she has her own sofa where she can get quality downtime away from the pups to recharge her batteries and can watch them closely. Here she is watching them all under the heat lamp.

Picture 5 shows a couple of the pups close up.

At this stage they cannot see or hear anything. They rely on the sense of smell to get to mum to feed and they tend to bunch up together for warmth and comfort.

Its very important that Sasha still has her play time and we are very lucky to have such a large garden to give what she needs. She is pictured here with me on the swing with her tugger toy.

She still interacts with Lenny but I obviously don’t allow him to push her around or knock her as she is still very delicate and needs to feel that she and her pups are safe.

I have included a short video to show you our set-up and I intend to post a video each week to show you how they are all progressing.

Bernie, Bob, Bevan and Billy all enjoy the Devon County Show

Here they all are at a practice session on Wednesday the day before the start of the 3 day show.

The Police dog section started doing a display at the Devon County show 3 years ago and it has become such a popular feature I think we will be doing it for some time to come. Here are all the operational teams and the pups with their puppy walkers arriving and making their way to the arena.

In years gone by we used to have a Police dog display team but an ever increasing shortage of operational officers means that officers cannot be released from operational duties to practice. All the handlers are volunteers and have to practice in their own time.
Here are the pups entering the arena.

The display team are seen here with our firearm support dog Logan dealing with an armed criminal.

Puppy Billy is seen here negotiating the agility A frame.

Here is Police dog Daz watching the criminal he has just detained to make sure he doesn’t try to attack his handler while he is being searched.

For our pups the Devon County show is an excellent opportunity to socialise and see how they cope with the large crowds, other animals, lots of different dogs, the noisy fairground and lots of other interesting features.

Bernie, Bob and Bevan are seen here going off to explore.

All of the pups took everything in their stride. Bob, Bernie and Bevan are seen here relaxing by the noisy dodgem cars.

Police dog Vinnie and Lee are seen here dealing with the very violent sisterhood.

Fortunately Police dog Annie was more than a match for this very disturbing individual.

I was very proud of all of our pups particularly how social they were with all the dogs that they met. They were a credit to the puppy scheme. They are seen here meeting the public outside the Police stand.

Bob is seen here with his puppy walking family.

We were very grateful to Paul who attended the show on all 3 days with Bob and also attended the practice on the Wednesday.

We are also grateful to Nigel and Sue who made Billy available for 3 of the 4 days and Paul Sabin attended 2 of the days with Bernie. Here is Bernie completely relaxed meeting a fan.

Here’s Bevan waiting for his turn on the roundabout.

He then decided to gate crash the Red Setters dog show.

Here are all the display team and pups with their puppy walkers at the end of our display.

Finally we all signed off the day with a picture with all the Police staff and mascot’s.

Yet again another great 3 days which we all enjoyed and look forward to coming back next year.

Rika and Lenny have completed 3 weeks of their initial police dog training

Rika and Tim have had an excellent first 3 weeks on their 3 month Initial Police dog course. I have been very impressed with Rika’s determination, enthusiasm and mental toughness.

Rika is pictured here getting ready for action.

Here she is doing some heel-work and agility.

I am training my own dog Lenny alongside Rika as insurance for Tim just to make doubly sure that whatever happens he leaves the course in 2 month’s time with an operational Police dog.

Here is Lenny completing the long jump and the high jump.

As I explained in my previous blog Tim’s last dog had to be released very late on in the last course and so this meant that if he came back in September to start again on our next course he wouldn’t have had an operational Police dog until December this year.

Here are Lenny and Rika doing their down stay together and the handlers joining them to conclude the exercise.