Nine dogs of Odisha police await posting owing to poor training

BHUBANESWAR: Quality of the training of dogs of the K-9 squad of state police has come under the scanner as nine canines have failed to get posting in districts owing to their poor sniffing and tracking skills. The nine dogs, comprising 3 Rottweilers and 6 German Shepherds, have already turned three. Normally a trained dog gets involved in police investigations at the age of one.
Sources said, DGP Abhay recently came across the alleged professional deficiencies in nine dogs and asked the trainers to train the animals afresh impart so that the vacancies of dogs in police districts could be filled at the earliest.
Against the sanctioned strength of 59, the K-9 squad currently has only 26 dogs. The K-9 squad functions under the state Crime Branch in Cuttack. At present, at least 13 districts, including Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Kendrapada, Sonepur, Nayagarh and Nabarangapur districts do not have any police dogs.
Police officials said they lack the requisite infrastructure to train the dogs. “Until 2018, we had been sending our dogs to the national training centre for dogs (NTCD) at Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh. NTCD is being run by the border security force. The duration of training for a tracker canine is 9 months and sniffer dog is 6 months. But since 2018, we have been imparting training to dogs at the K-9 headquarters in Cuttack. The quality of training in Cuttack is yet to match the standard of the NTCD,” a police officer said.
A few weeks ago, the Crime Branch again attempted to rope in the NTCD to send the nine dogs for training. But the NTCD authorities turned down the Crime Branch’s request as the dogs had already crossed the eligible age limit of undergoing training.
“Our dogs are 3-year-old each whereas the NTCD normally accepts only 4-month-old puppies to impart training. The puppies are trained on explosive detection, narcotic detection, search and rescue, assault and infantry patrol,” the officer said.
Crime Branch’s additional director general Soumendra Priyadarshi said the nine dogs will soon be deployed against the vacancies. “The dogs are being properly trained to meet our requirements. They will be posted soon,” Priyadarshi said.