MPUMZI MSHWESHWE
Eastern Cape police are on the lookout for new four-legged recruits and have appealed to members of the public to assist by donating suitable dogs to strengthen the province’s K9 unit.
Police said the unit was facing a critical shortage of dogs, which was affecting crime-fighting, search and rescue and other detection operations across the province.
Eastern Cape police spokesperson Warrant Officer Majola Nkohli said many trained dog handlers were currently without canine partners.
“We do not have a limit on how many dogs we are willing to accept from donors,” Nkohli said.
“We have dog handlers, those responsible for handling the dogs, and we already have 43 of these handlers who are trained and had dogs before.
“Now we have recruited another 56 members to join the K9 unit and they are yet to be trained and provided with dogs.
“This means we have 99 dog handlers in the province who need dogs.
“We can’t then say we need 99 dogs because the dogs still need to be trained.”
Nkohli said donations would help create a pool of dogs from which suitable candidates could be selected for training.
Police have identified two main categories of work for the dogs — detection and search roles, and patrol and apprehension duties.
Dogs in the detection and search category are trained for narcotics, explosives and firearm detection, as well as search and rescue operations.
Nkohli said these dogs were required to show a high play or prey drive, demonstrated by strong focus on chasing balls or toys.
The patrol and apprehension dogs are trained for frontline duties and are expected to display a controlled predatory prey drive linked to suspect apprehension and protection work.
Former police K9 handler Charlton Hilpert said different breeds were suited to different policing tasks.
“Every dog breed goes with a purpose and the discipline that the dog must perform within the dog units,” Hilpert said.
“Sniffer dogs [used for sniffing explosives, narcotics], forensic dogs, and protected species are normally German shepherds, golden retrievers and labradors.”
He said tracker dogs were mostly bloodhounds and Belgian, Dutch and German shepherds.
Police have increasingly turned to the public for assistance after reported unhealthy conditions at the country’s premier police dog breeding station in Roodeplaat, Pretoria, where the animals were allegedly not properly fed or cared for. Private security companies such as Red Alert have also assisted police at times by providing their own K9 units for operations.
Red Alert national operations manager Brett Harvey said the company regularly worked alongside police at roadblocks and in searches.
“We team up with the police for operations such as roadblocks where our teams check for narcotics, weapons and explosives.
“We have been involved in missing person cases as well with good success,” Harvey said.
Community activist Amanda Timms said she planned to continue donating dogs to the police, something she had done in previous years.
“I donated two dogs last year, which just came out of their training and I am again going to be asking for sponsors so I can purchase some dogs and hand them over to the police,” Timms said.
“This is a venture that I do every year. The Qonce K9 unit has approached me to donate some dogs to them too.
“The dogs that I have donated have all been looked after and have been fighting crime.
“Donating dogs is a good cause because crime-fighting is something that needs to be done.”
Nkohli said dogs considered for training had to meet certain requirements.
“To be considered, dogs must be healthy, confident, energetic and not fearful of people or loud noises.
“Preferred breeds include German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, labrador retrievers, rottweilers, bloodhounds, border collies, Jack Russells and Dutch shepherds.” — Daily Dispatch
