MEET OUR LATEST RECRUITS NICO, NICKI AND NERO

NIKO

NIKKI

NERO

Niko, Nikki and Nero have been bred by Bernard and Karen of Kazzardsway German Shepherds in Manchester. They previously supplied Elsa and Eric to us in 2017.

Eric ( now renamed Oppo) licensed as a General purpose dog in May this year and his sister Elsa (now renamed Nessa ) will be starting a General purpose Police dog course in September this year.

I visited the litter and mum Jeri 2 weeks ago to see how they were getting on.

The father of the litter is a dog called Fynn (Vongraff Sampson) who was also the father of our last 2 pups Eric and Elsa.

The litter consisted of 4 females and 2 males. I had arranged to purchase 2 males Nero and Niko for our puppy program. But there was a very feisty female called Nikki who caught my eye pictured here with her mum Jeri.

Bernard had identified her as his pick of the litter and so I arranged to take her along with her 2 brothers two weeks later when they were 8 weeks old.

Bernard’s has 3 adult breeding females Jeri, Jazz and Tally who are related and have grown up together. I was amazed to see all 3 completely relaxed together with Jeri and her pups.



Bernard brought to my attention that one of the pups Nero had developed a condition called Puppy strangles, or juvenile cellulitis. It is a nodular and pustular skin disorder that affects puppies. The cause of the condition is unknown but if not treated quickly a puppy can become very poorly.

The symptoms are lethargy, skin lesions around the face, swollen and tender lymph nodes either side of the jaw and neck. Although it looks really unsightly provided treatment is provided promptly in the form of steroids and antibiotics puppies usually make a full recovery.

I returned 2 weeks later and collected all 3 pups from Bernard and Karen.

Nero was much livelier and although he still had significant scabbing around his face the vet was happy with his progress and for him to travel to Devon to be allocated to his new puppy walker.

The pups were very quiet and relaxed on the 5 hour journey back to my house and were greeted as always by Ella.

Here they are exploring the garden prior to the arrival of their puppy walkers.








They were all very confident meeting my dogs Ella and Larry and it was immediately apparent why Bernard had picked out Nikki because she is clearly a very strong assertive and very playful character.

I am often asked if we favour males over females and I would say historically yes we have. The reason is that the males generally are more assertive, are larger with more of a presence and are therefore more effective as a conflict resolution option.

There is no doubt that once the males get their testosterone they go up a gear. The females don’t have that change. Then there is the management of the female season.

In this next video you can see that Nikki is a strongly built puppy with a presence and her raised tail shows her dominance and will to win.



In the Alliance 25% of our GP dogs are female but interestingly they make up 50% of our elite firearm support search dogs and the current Regional Police dog champion is Police dog Ash from Camborne.

Now that more Police officers are equipped with conflict resolution tools such as Tazer and Captor incapacitant sprays our General purpose Police dogs are not needed as much as they once were for use of force deployments.

They still need to deal with fleeing criminals, violent crowds and defence of their own handler but the bulk of their work is now scent related ie tracking and searching.

This means an exceptional nose work dog is a must and very often the female can be more focused on the task and not so distracted as the males who have more of a tendency to investigate animal or other dog scents and scent mark.

Allocation of the pups

 NERO

I have allocated Nero to Chris and his partner Lindsay who live in Lymstone. Nero is pictured here with Chris and his 10 year old son Henry.

They have successfully puppy walked previous dogs Peppe and Elsa for me. Peppe was a puppy I imported from Holland aged 4 months who lacked a little confidence in the early months.

I was very impressed with Chris’s patience and skill in developing Peppe who certainly doesn’t lack confidence any more. Based on this I asked Chris to take on Nero because I know he will need patience and time to recover from his condition.

I don’t think Nero has any confidence issues and I have no doubt Henry will be involved in his development every step of the way.

NIKKI

I have allocated Nikki to Margaret who lives in Plymouth. Margaret has puppy walked before but has had some bad luck with her previous pups Helga ( Hip problem ) and Lulu. ( Too nervous)

Hopefully Nikki will be successful for her. What is for sure Nikki is going to be a real handful and will keep her busy.

NIKO

I have allocated Nico to new puppy walkers Karen and Rod who live in Bampton. They have been interested in becoming puppy walkers in the past but didn’t apply because they had their own German shepherd Tia. Sadly Tia passed away in June aged 11.

New puppy Niko can’t replace Tia but I am sure he will give them lots of pleasure and hopefully go on to become a fully-fledged Police dog.

We kept them busy playing and running around to tire them out before their journey to their new homes.

Time for one last photo and away they all went.

I pleased to report that all 3 pups have settled into their new homes and I will be visiting them all this week to see how they are getting on.

Here is Henry bedding down for the night to give little Nero some much needed support having never been on his own before.

All of the pups were booked into the vets for an initial check-up but Nero’s skin condition did deteriorate slightly and so I met Chris and Henry at our vets to make sure his condition didn’t become any worse.

He is already on a program of steroids for several more weeks but Clive our vet has put him back onto Antibiotics for the foreseeable future.

He certainly has plenty of visitors to take his mind off things and is much livelier now.

He certainly looks much better but he will require medication for a good few weeks yet.

In addition Chris bathes him with Hibiscrub antimicrobial skin cleaner twice a day. After that Chris also has to administer Savlon advanced healing gel which promotes faster healing and helps reduce the likelihood of scarring.

Here is Nikki looking like she is just about to explore this flower further.

Here is Niko looking like he is fully settled in also.

I will keep you updated on how these 3 get on in the coming weeks.

In 2 months’ time I have further pups to collect for our January 2020 Initial Police dog course.

Over the next 3 weeks I will be spending a day with each puppy walker and their puppy to assess them environmentally and to target any individual training or developmental needs that they may have.

The fortnightly development group sessions are not always able to cover all individual needs.

So from Me, Ella and Larry bye for now.