Dog handler Sergeant Buyisile Makhosonke from the K9 search and rescue unit with rescue dog Bond. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane / Independent Newspapers
When I was an operational commander in the police at Table Bay Harbour, I made extensive use of our trained dog unit for detecting firearms and drugs.
I have suggested several times that the canine units be used in drug and firearms searches.
However, I was told that residents' dogs prevent trained police dogs from executing their trained function as sniffer dogs.
This raises two questions: first, is this true? And second, could the police canines be trained to ignore residents’ barking and growling dogs and do the tasks they are trained to do?
With the terrible scourge of drugs and illegal firearms, all obstacles must be overcome to allow man’s best friend in service of crime detection to perform their functions without other dogs putting them off.
* Keith Alfred Adolph Blake, Ottery.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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