(cont)

only half the story - police dogs are trained to follow not just the most recent scent trail of a human when tracking, but to keep an eye out for ground disturbance and footfall –  this is distinct from hunting hounds which rely solely on their noses and work with other dogs’ trailing ability rather than working independently. Each human has a unique odour not just in terms of their deodorant, aftershave or perfumes, but in terms of shoe polish or the smell of each plastic or leather on their trainers and shoes, and the unique scent of fibres in a particular type of clothing. The dogs hone in on this and ignore other tracks they come across. Ours were faultless across Lincolnshire farmland.
Equally, the dogs can be used to locate objects, alerting the owners to the presence of items by barking, rather than retrieving them, which could disturb a crime scene or contaminate potential evidence - a further useful aspect of the dogs’ ability is being able to retrieve objects from house thefts and return them to owners.

Our tracks were a few hundred yards long but the starting ones for dogs in training are 100yds. When fully trained, a police dog will locate objects over half a mile away and will be taught to work in situations with several concurrent trails.

For the dogs’ next assignment we ventured to RAF Scampton, where the team uses several rather creepy and dimly lit dilapidated former air force buildings. With the dogs still in the vehicles, we hid behind a piece of furniture in one of the buildings to trial their searching abilities.

The animals’ searching skills are used for break-ins and such like in commercial & industrial premises where officers would ordinarily spend hours searching networks of corridors, industrial facilities and situations giving a suspect plenty of potential hiding places. Whilst it would be easy to evade an officer, particularly at night, in a large school, office or factory, evading one of the dogs is impossible.

“No human being can ever mask their scent.” Says Andy. “The dogs are like a guided missile. Straight to their mark, and when they find them, they bark relentlessly.”

At up to 50kg, and with 42 huge teeth on display, the animals can be extremely intimidating indeed, but they’re exceptionally well disciplined and the team itself is equally aware of its obligations. As part of European Human Rights legislation, they’re obliged to shout an initial warning to the intruder before searching.