Continuing our rather less than “in depth” look at working dogs, this time it’s the turn of the police dog. If some early, informal, peace keeping roles played by dogs count, police dogs actually pre-date the existence of human police officers by centuries.

According to a contemporary account, in Ancient Greece, during the reign of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, between 300 and 272 BC, a dog detected a murder. It seems two men murdered a slave, in the presence of his dog. The King passed by just after the event and saw what had happened. He ordered the burial of the body and took possession of the dog, which became his constant companion. One day when the King was reviewing his troops, accompanied by the dog, it happened. As the soldiers marched past the dog sprang out and attacked two of them, threatening to tear them to pieces. So terrified were the two men that they confessed to the murder there and then to escape the vengeance of the dog. The story is claimed to be true but witnesses present at the time are very scarce now so we cannot be sure. Anyway, it’s a great story!

For centuries Night Watchmen and Parish Constables often patrolled accompanied by their own dogs. As early as the 1300s, the city of St Malo in France employed dogs to patrol the streets at night controlled by armed citizens appointed by the city. That lasted right up to 1770 when it was abruptly terminated after a young naval officer, out after curfew, was attacked by a dog patrol and killed. However the dogs have never been forgotten and to this day they are represented on the official insignia of St Malo.

The ancient abbey and town of Mont St Michel in Normandy used dogs provided by King Louis XI to warn of approaching strangers between 1461 and 1483. It seems likely that other French towns had similar arrangements.

1895 is generally regarded as the year when the use of specially trained dogs for official police duties began in Europe. That year, experiments began in France to explore the possibilities of training dogs specifically for police work. 1896 saw the launch of similar studies in Germany.
Then in March, 1899, Police Commissioner E Van Wesenmael of the city of Ghent in Belgium established a school for the training of dogs to assist in law enforcement duties. This is considered to be the first formal police dog training establishment anywhere. Starting with three dogs, then another seven, the project was deemed to be a success and all the dogs entered active service with the city police by the end of the year. The ten dogs worked with ten constables and were on duty from 10.00pm to 6.00am.

The scheme was judged to be a great success. By 1906 about 120 officers were patrolling several districts of the city of Ghent with 50 to 60 trained police dogs.

Ghent’s innovation was soon copied and in 1910 more than six hundred German towns had adopted the idea. Police forces in Hungary, Austria and Italy soon followed along with the rest of Belgium.

All this did not go unnoticed in Britain of course. The principle of training police dogs was first officially adopted in Britain around 1910. However, being Britain, officialdom moved slowly and it was not until 1934 that a Home Office study into the formal use of trained police dogs commenced, only to be shelved owing to the outbreak of war in 1939.

After the war, as an experiment, patrols in Hyde Park, London were accompanied by dogs. It started well when one of the dogs foiled an attempt to snatch a purse on the first night. The dramatic reduction in crime in the park following the introduction of the dogs soon confirmed the success of the experiment.

As a result, the Metropolitan Police established its first specialised dog training unit in 1953 to train both dogs and handlers and the Dog Section was born. By then several other Police forces across the UK were experimenting with their deployment.

In 1954 a nationwide Standing Committee was set up to oversee and co-ordinate the breeding and selection of suitable dogs for police duties, the supply of such animals and their training as a support service for all forces in the UK. Thus was laid the foundation for the highly effective and professional Dog Sections to be found in every UK Police force today.


Article provided provided by freelance copywriter uk, Pete Hopper of Write For You

Let’s take a brief break from rescue dogs and return to look at dogs as workmates to humans. As to which is actually man’s best workmate, the dog or the horse, is historically quite a close contest. For centuries the horse, a noble beast, has carried man into battle and to the hunt, provided him with transport, pulled his ploughs and other implements, provided sport and fertilized his crops.

Although the dog has not actually carried anyone on its back, nor fertilized crops, it has been used for pulling things, but for sheer versatility the dog has the edge on the horse for the title of man’s best workmate. For example, you can herd sheep on horseback, but a dog will do the job for you.

The sheepdog is probably one of the oldest examples of a working dog along with the guard dog from which it evolved. Dogs are great for the role of guarding property, people or indeed sheep. They bark and raise the alarm when intruders approach and they have teeth!
Sheep are naturally nervous of dogs and mankind learned long ago to capitalise on this, once the natural herding instincts of some breeds of dog were recognised and then finely tuned through selective breeding and training.

Just watch an experienced shepherd working a flock of sheep with a dog and observe the superb synergy between human and dog. What team-work is demonstrated by these perfect workmates!

Practice makes perfect and shepherds and their dogs have been developing this working relationship over many generations. It all seems to have started with shepherds using dogs to guard their flocks against predators such as wolves and bears.
Apparently the keeping of sheep originated in the Middle East and the nomadic tribes who travelled across Europe to the British Isles around 2500BC brought with them both their sheep and domesticated, or at least semi-domesticated, dogs. In the lands south of the Mediterranean Sea it was usual to let the sheep roam far and wide over a large area and only round them up for shearing, slaughter, or moving to fresh pasture.
Their dogs appear to have lived with the people so they would already have been domesticated to a degree. It seems unlikely they would have been pets but would have earned the scraps of food thrown to them by the people, almost certainly by guarding the sheep and cattle against attack by wolves and bears.

In Northern Europe such attacks would have been more common, prompting a change from the Mediterranean system. Keeping the sheep together in a manageable area rather than allowing them to roam far and wide would have made the task of protection from predators far more achievable. The guardian dogs would help in this by constantly circling the sheep, encouraging them to stay together. Finding that some dogs showed signs of a natural herding instinct the shepherds would have favoured those dogs, encouraging them to breed so gradually strengthening the herding instinct, generation by generation.
By the end of the Middle-Ages in Britain and Ireland, wolves and bears were no longer to be found and the guardian dogs had given way to the more specialised breeds of herding sheepdogs and the beginnings of what we know as sheepdogs. More and more land became enclosed for arable farming meaning that in many parts of Britain allowing sheep and goats to roam all over the place became less practical, encouraging the use of sheepdogs to keep flocks together.

Another interesting development in shepherding in the British Isles compared with the Middle East and other countries is that when a flock of sheep is on the move together in the Middle East and elsewhere it was customary for the shepherd to lead and the sheep to follow. Bible references to the Good Shepherd leading his flock come to mind. In Britain, at least since mediaeval times, the shepherd follows behind the flock with the dogs keeping the sheep together. That would have made it much easier for the shepherd to spot any potential threat early and also to work the dogs.

CREDIT REF: www.janedogs.com/herding-sheepdogs.

Article provided provided by freelance copywriter UK, Pete Hopper of Write For You