The Sunday Times Magazine - UK (2021-12-12)

the reception area and everything was laid

out. Having excitable springers running

around tables with expensive glassware is

a bit of a challenge.”

Max also took part in the security sweep

at Wimbledon this year, which Duffee

describes as “high pressure”. “Not only have

you got all the tennis stars but the event

attracts a lot of high-profile people such as

the Duchess of Cambridge — so we’ll

search the royal box. That’s an interesting

event for the dogs because there are a lot of

tennis balls. They think it’s brilliant because

they’ll come out of the bushes next to the

courts with balls they’ve found all day long,

thinking, ‘This is great. I haven’t had to do

anything and I’ve already got my ball.’ ”

It feels like the moment to mention to

Duffee and Biles that I have a cavapoo — a

Cavalier King Charles spaniel crossed with

a miniature poodle — called Fudge, who is

addicted to chasing tennis balls. “That’ll be

the spaniel in him,” Biles says. Admittedly

Fudge is more Fozzie Bear than Hot Fuzz,

but he can be annoyingly exuberant: could

he be transformed into a high-drive police

dog? Biles says, diplomatically, that he

hasn’t seen a cavapoo enter the force yet.

D

eploying dogs in the fight against

crime is nothing new. As far back

as the 15th century, parish

constables in England took their

pet dogs with them on night

patrols. Sniffer dogs were first

used by Scotland Yard in 1888,

when a pair of bloodhounds, Burgho and

Barnaby, were trained in the unfruitful

hunt for Jack the Ripper. It was an

inauspicious start. The bloodhounds were

lampooned in the press, with reports about

them getting lost in the London fog and

biting the police commissioner — tales

that have since been dismissed as

shaggy-dog stories.

The truth is their sniffer training set

a precedent. The first official police dogs

in Britain were introduced by the North

Eastern Railway police to patrol the Hull

docks in 1908, inspired by a fact-finding

trip to Ghent in Belgium, because the

Belgians were well ahead in the police

dog game. Dogs weren’t officially brought

in by Scotland Yard until 1938. Today,

Britain’s various police forces employ more

than 2,500 dogs, most of them general

purpose Belgian malinois (“malis” as the

police refer to them) or German shepherds.

On the day of my visit to Keston, a fresh

batch of malis are being put through their

paces over an assault course, leaping

through window frames and over hurdles,

and finding balls in tunnels.

“We brought these dogs over from

Holland,” Biles says, adding that Covid-

has led to a shortage of suitable dogs.

“Normally they would have been bred

here. We usually breed between 50 and

100 dogs a year but we had to suspend our

programme during lockdown. We couldn’t

go to meet the breeders. Our priority is to

get dogs on the street, so there are times

when we go and buy dogs when they are 12

to 14 months old. When they get over here,

they get allocated to a handler for two or

three weeks so they develop that bond.

Then they start their 12-week training

course. These five dogs are in week two.”

Police officers who apply successfully

to become dog handlers start out with

general purpose dogs, which are trained

to bark at and, if necessary, bite criminals,

especially the armed ones. They can track

or chase suspects who have fled a crime

scene. They can also find items like dropped

wallets or car keys chucked away by drunk

drivers following a crash: they are trained to

find the residual human scent on property.

All police dogs live with their handlers,

who are given compounds (shed-like

outhouses) to keep them in their gardens

at home. This, Biles says, can prove a

stumbling block to recruiting officers in

London. “We had a big conversation

recently around why recruitment is down

— and the reason is so many people these

days live in flats.”

“Harry and Meghan’s

wedding was difficult

— having excitable

spaniels running around

expensive glassware”

THE USUAL SUSPECTS?

Police officers and their dogs on the hunt for

explosives in Windsor ahead of the wedding

of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018

GERMAN SHEPHERD

A loyal, persistent

and fierce general

purpose (GP) dog

BELGIAN MALINOIS

Athletic and driven:

the most common

GP dog in the Met

LABRADOR

Retriever gundogs

used as sniffers: will

work for treats

COCKER SPANIEL

Originally bred as

hunting dogs. Make

great searchers

SPRINGER SPANIEL

A gundog trained

to search using

tennis balls

Today’s police dogs come in

(almost) all shapes and sizes

TOM BARNES FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, GETTY IMAGES, PA

The Sunday Times Magazine • 13