Since October 2019, the NRW police have been one of the first police forces in Germany to have certified data storage detection dogs. And they have more than proven themselves in this short time. Thanks to their qualification at the State Office for Training, Further Education and Personnel Matters of the NRW Police (LAFP NRW), the sniffer dogs not only reliably find what they are looking for. They are also in high demand and are regularly deployed.
These dogs have already proven their worth
"The dogs were requested on the very first day after their introduction," explained Thomas Pierenkämper at a press conference at the LAFP NRW training center in Neuss on 25 February 2020. He is a department head at the State Office for Central Police Services NRW (LZPD NRW) and is responsible, among other things, for coordinating the deployment of the data storage sniffer dogs. The service dogs' skills have been called upon 85 times in the past few months, of which they successfully sniffed out 33 cases.
During the press conference, media representatives were able to see for themselves the qualities of the sniffer dogs. They proved their worth during demonstrations and training sequences in prepared training apartments. Meanwhile, the cameramen upstairs in a gallery took the opportunity to record the action.
How do you train sniffer dogs?
It was more difficult to calmly take a portrait of the service dog and the service dog handler. This is because dogs in the service of the police have a pronounced play instinct and can be a real troublemaker. This is also the case with the LAFP NRW's training and demonstration dog. His name is "Hank". And he belongs to training instructor Peter Baumeister: "Hank prefers to search rather than lie down," he explains as the journalists laboriously try to take a photo of them both sitting on a couch.
The recipe for success for the sniffer dogs is simple in principle. Police Chief Superintendent Baumeister explains: "The dogs search for and find a conditioned target scent. The service dog handler rewards them with either a toy or food."
Dogs are an indispensable part of police work
What exactly the dogs smell is not known. Dogs' selective smelling enables them to filter out individual odors from their environment. The dogs' sense of smell is therefore far superior to that of humans and is what makes them so valuable as an operational tool and indispensable for the police.
You can find out more about the introduction and presentation of the NRW police's first data storage sniffer dogs here.
You can get a detailed impression of the sniffer dog's work with this video. You can also find out more about the service dog system of the NRW police in general in the magazine "Streife".
