In this blog, meet the teams and read a Danno update

Meet the Teams on the February 2018 Initial Police Dog Course

From Left to right are Dan and Ollie, Steve and Tag, Instructor Hugh Watson, Pete and Eric and Mark and Roscoe (Previously Oscar )

The course started on the 5 of Feb with Ollie, Tag and Roscoe. ( Oscar) Those dogs have now completed 2 weeks of the 13 week course.

Eric was drafted in at short notice at the start of week 2 with new handler Pete. This was because of an existing handler retiring from the section earlier than planned.

Here is an introduction to the individual teams.

Dan Pencollins and Ollie

Dan has been a Devon and Cornwall Police officer for 15 years and lives in Plymouth with his wife and 2 children aged 6 and 8. They also have a 9 year old pet springer called Rockey. Dan tells me that Rocky is definitely the boss but they both get on well together.

Dan has been actively trying to get onto the dog section for 6 years.

Ollie was puppy walked by Paul and Debbie Burring.

Ollie has two brothers Ozzie and Oscar ( Now Roscoe ) who were bred and supplied to us as eight week old puppies by my friend Richard Evans in Chesterfield. Oscar ( Now Roscoe ) is also on this course and Ozzie passed out on our previous course in December 2017. 

Here are the 3 boys being handed over to me by Richard and his wife Sue in January 2017.

Steve Newton and Tag

Steve lives in Yeovil with his wife and 3 children aged 7, 10 and 16 together with their 2 dogs  Copper a Springer spaniel aged  2 and Gunnar a Pointer aged 6.

He has been a Police officer in Dorset for 13 years and has been actively trying to get onto the dog section for 4 years. He started the September 2017 Police dog course with TPD Rudy but injured his knee and had to start all over again on this course with new dog Tag.

Tag was puppy walked by Jo and Gideon Pritchard. They are pictured here with Tag and daughter Marina on one of the many training days they attended.

Tag was bred by Alfons Schumeister a breeder in Germany. We have 2 other operational Police dogs from his breeding Qwendi and Ronnie working in our Alliance.

Pete Boxall and Eric

Pete had been a Police officer for 9 years in Devon and Cornwall and lives in Cornwall with his partner and 2 children aged 9 and 11. They also have a 7 year old German Shepherd called Demi.

Pete has been actively trying to get onto the dog section for 4 years.

His dog Eric was not due to start a Police course until September and was called up when a vacancy unexpectedly came up on the course for Pete. 

Eric will be 12 months old on the 4th March and so we need to manage him carefully. This means avoiding high impact exercises such as agility and being very careful not to push him into confrontational situations operationally until he is more mentally mature.

He was Initially puppy walked by Terri and Mark Boswell until he became too strong for Terri .

He was then puppy walked by retired Police dog handler Eamon Rogers and his wife Karen. Eric is pictured here with his sister Elsa on one of their training days. Elsa has been puppy walked by Steve and Maria Pearce.

Eric and Elsa were bred by Bernard Horton of Kazzardsway German shepherds in Manchester. I have been very impressed with Eric and Elsa and we are hoping to have further pups from Bernard in the April/ May time.

Mark Hawkins and Roscoe ( Oscar )

Mark has been a Police officer for 18 years and lives in St Austell with his wife and 2 children aged 11 and 18. They also currently have retired drugs dog Jack aged 10.

Roscoe ( Oscar ) will be Mark’s third General purpose Police dog. Mark wasn’t expecting to be on this course but sadly his much adored and successful Police dog Bess died unexpectedly just before Xmas with what was believed to be some sort of blood infection aged 7.

Roscoe ( previously Oscar ) was puppy walked by Rebecca and Pete Bell.

Up until December last year we only had 1 dog team on the course. That changed dramatically after a number of unforeseen circumstances arose and we now have 4 teams on the course.

Once again this demonstrates the value of our puppy program in being able to supply dogs to our officers often at short notice.

All 4 dogs have settled into the course and although it is early days they are all progressing very well.
Here is Tag tracking across country with handler Steve.

 
The 13 week General purpose Police dog course is without doubt the most intensive and multi skilled Police dog course that there is.

Here is Mark and Roscoe ( Oscar ) in the early stages of training the long jump.

During the 13 weeks the teams will be trained to deal with a wide range of disciplines and skills. This will include dealing with disorderly crowds, violent criminals, tracking and searching for outstanding offenders and vulnerable missing persons, searching for discarded or hidden articles, and negotiating different types of obstacles.

This will all be underpinned by discipline and control exercises such as emergency recalls, heelwork, stay exercises and focus work. This work is very important in the early weeks.

Here are some photos of the teams in action.

Eric may be a week behind the rest of the boys but as you can see on his first tracking session that a lack of enthusiasm will not be a problem.



Here are the handlers relaxing with their dogs while they wait for their turn on the agility circuit.

The criminal work is still in the early stages but they all love this exercise. We tend to do this exercise at the end of the day to give them all a lift and they finish on a positive. Here is Tag on one of his early pad sessions.



I will be reporting on the course again at 7 weeks to show you how they have all progressed.

Danno finds his new home

There was a huge response to our appeal for a forever home for Danno. I eventually narrowed it down to 10 excellent potential homes and I visited them all over a 2 week period with Danno.

It was an excellent opportunity for me to see how Danno would react to meeting new situations and different people. He was absolutely flawless in the way he behaved.

I have really enjoyed having Danno for the last 3 months but he needed his own home.

I finally decided to place him with PCSO Kevin Youngman who lives in Cornwall with his wife Kerry and 2 elderly cats.  On our visit he was very well behaved towards Kevin’s 19 year old cat called Mars.

I spent a couple of days instructing Kevin on how to walk Danno in urban areas and also how to take him on rural walks including games he enjoys and how to get him to ignore other dogs.

Kevin’s wife hasn’t yet met Danno because she is in Australia meeting relatives and returns in two weeks time.

Kevin is enjoying having Danno and can’t wait for his wife to meet him. So for now it is just Kevin and Danno.

I knew that Danno was a gentleman and Kevin soon found that  out when 19 year old Mars jumped in and started eating Danno’s lunch  with Danno standing back to let him.

In my next blog later this week I will introduce our new arrivals Lulu and Lola and I will show you how Bill and Ben got on in their first training session.

I will also give you an update on Sasha whose puppies are due on or around Tuesday 27th Feb.
From Sasha, Ella and Me bye for now.