Three new ‘pawfficers’ join the team

Message from Humberside Police:

Whilst our furry new recruits may look sweet and angelic in their pictures, they are in fact the three newest members of our dog section trained to fight crime across our region.

Alongside their handlers the three new recruits, police dogs King, Roxy and Rusty were welcomed to the force by Superintendent Lee Edwards having successfully completed a 13-week training course. 

Following on from their induction we spoke with the police officers about their new four-legged work colleagues and how they will contribute to keeping our communities safe.

The training seem lengthy and intense for you as officers and the dogs, what does it entail:

PC Phil Lusby said: “The 13-week programme whilst challenging is a great way for us and the dogs to learn each other’s quirks and personalities. It also equips us with all of the relevant skills to ensure when any of the dogs are deployed to an incident, they know what their job is.

Now police dogs King, Roxy and Rusty have completed training what will their role be:

PC Andrew Reid said: “Whilst they all have their own personalities the three new furry additions to the teams are all ‘general purpose’ dogs.

“They will assist with searching and tracking down suspects and missing people, locating objects involved in criminal incidents, detaining suspects, disarming suspects carrying weapons and public order situations such as crowd control. We will also often support community officers.

Can you tell us a little bit more about who King, Roxy and Rusty are?

PC Alistair Young said: “All three of our new recruits are Belgian Malinois, police dog Rusty joined us from the Wirral, Liverpool whilst Roxy and King have joined us from oversees and are originally from Holland.

“They all have fantastic personalities and the more we work with them, the stronger our bond gets inside and outside of work.

Roxy has already acquired the nickname ‘Foxy’ and we soon established King has a mischievous alter ego and he has ended up with the nickname Keith!

How do you reward the dogs for all of the hard work they do to help keep our communities safe?

PC Phil Lusby said: “Like most dogs, they love nothing more than to play, and whilst it may leave the kennel a little smelly on occasion, we’ve discovered that all three dogs absolutely love tripe!

Being a part of the dog section is a big commitment, but one that is really fulfilling. We train the dogs every single day and seeing them excel is a brilliant feeling.

Make sure to keep an eye out for our new recruits across the force area over the next few months #ThereWhenYouNeedUs #PawPatrol