Police dog 60/70s

Extract from a Ladybird easy - reading book first published in 1974.

Certainly the first specialist dog of this nature!!!! trained to detect the Tranny van man?. I would be very interested to know why?

The comment below reveals this to have been a spoof publication. Owing to the fact that I found it to be somewhat hilarious I am leaving it in situ.

The book has been sent in its entirety all over the internet, myself having received it from numerous sources.

A fellow author from across the pond, 'Badge on my collar'

Press Release

Marilyn Jeffers Walton's eighth book has just been released. The attachment gives a preview of the book and shows the cover. The book is entitled, Badge of My Collar--A Chronicle of Courageous Canines. This book profiles fifteen police and search and rescue dogs telling their unique and fascinating true stories. Three of these dogs are Ohio dogs. One, Luke II, is the highly successful Cincinnati Police Department K-9 who was rescued from the Animal Friends Humane Society in Butler County the day he was to be put down. Other dogs from around the country and in Iraq are featured in the book which also includes the poignant story of the only dog lost at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Over a span of twenty years these stories were searched for and collected to create a true chronicle of these self-sacrificing and brave dogs.

The book is available at http://www.authorhouse.com/ or by calling 1 888-728-8467. It is also available an amazon.com or authorhouse.co.uk, and is being sold through the U.S. Police Canine Association website. http://www.uspcak9.com/

Ex-Chief Inspector Terry Shelton

Anecdote and photograph with the kind permission of Harold Philbin

Photo of Terry Shelton with King George VI .

A proud and private man Terry Shelton, not many of the thousands of handlers he trained actually knew his real name or that he was one of the heroic Marine Commandos who invaded Norway during World War two.

It seemed that a P.C. called him Terry by mistake just after the war and he liked it so much that he answered to it for the rest of his very active long service, just short of forty years to be accurate.

Subtle commands

extract from a news letter, date not known.

Don’t try telling police dogs to “p--s off”!
I had to laugh when I read the Skipper about the German trained police dog. I was a police dog handler for 26 years in the Bristol Constabulary.
I was one of two policemen to start the dog section in this force. We had two puppies supplied by the Surrey Police Dog Section. Even in those days dogs were in a short supply and were obtained from members of the public as gifts, and bred by various police forces, especially those forces that had a training centre. A lot of breeding stock was of course from Germany. Germany uses an enormous number of dogs. I understand that the border patrols have somewhere in the region of 3,000 dogs.
In my time as a handler, dogs from abroad had to be quarantined for six months and this was not a viable proposition for small dog sections. I don't know what the situation is today. To get back to what made me laugh was your "aus" and "bissen" which you say the dog handler had to learn. This is not for the dogs' sake, it is a safety precaution. At the dog training school we were taught to say "passauf" - this was when we wanted the dog to attack. This as you can see was a safety factor. It was not a word I was likely to use in everyday conversation but this is the laugh. I was with my colleague late one evening when we came upon three young men coming from the back of a factory. When they saw the dog van approach they stepped back into the shadows. We stopped, got our dogs out of the van and went up to them. After questioning them and examining the premises we were satisfied that they had been relieving themselves. We told them to go on their way. There is always one. This one was becoming a nuisance. His mates were trying to calm him down to no avail. He was mouthing off about his rights and gesticulating. My colleague's dog was getting a bit agitated and straining at the short lead. His handler stepped nearer and said forcefully "p--s off" and pointed in the direction he wanted the man to go. The dog must have thought he had said "passauf" because in the wink of an eye the dog lunged forward and seized him by his arm. Startled, the young fellow tried to snatch his arm out of the dogs mouth, and the handler was pulling the dog back, when the coat sleeve parted company with the rest of the jacket.
It was then that the man decided to leave the scene and, after picking up his sleeve, he ran off ranting and raving to catch up to his mates who had left when we told them to. We put the dogs back into the van.
It was at this time we realised that even using a foreign language was fraught with danger.
Tom Hornsby, Hamilton Close, Hayle

If You are out there Tom, please contact.
A command also used by the Notts Police! but which one?

Death of Scarborough's first Police Dog Handler

Reported in the press 21 February 2008

SCARBOROUGH'S first ever police dog handler has died at the age of 77.
Norman Collier was well known for patrolling Scarborough with his award-winning Alsatian, called North, who gained many accolades over the years.Norman joined the police in 1956 and spent 17 years with the force, working mainly in Scarborough and spending a short time in Guisborough.He started his police career as a village bobby in Carlton Miniott, near Thirsk, and after two years went to train as a dog handler at Solberge Hall, Northallerton.

In 1966 North was made a working trials champion, the highest award a dog can obtain in civilian trials, and in 1968 he came 2nd in the national police dog finals

Ollie the Owl

The infamous 'Ollie the owl'

Yes it was me who dressed Ollie up with a pirates hat and patch in Ch/Insp Ray Wood's Office at Sutton and revelled in the fact that the Section were questioned at length with an eagle eye. It was me that kidnapped him and left the note. We (I will not name the two Dog Section Sgts who ably assisted me) had great fun doing the video and it was hard to stifle the laughter in the background. The worst thing was fearing that Ollie would break when doing the jumps and criminal work.
The art of going in the Dog Section Office was to distract Woodies attention and turn Ollie's head so that he wasn't looking at you, as it always appeared that if Ollie was looking at you a b********g was imminent.

More from the Ray Wood album

From LEFT to RIGHT. as we look at them with thanks to Alan Pickles, Ex-Bradford City

1. P.C. Geoff Plummer, Leeds City. 2. Roger aka Howard Radford Lincoln City. 3. Louis Oldfield. West riding 4. Sgt Les Bray. West Riding. 5. ?. 6. The one and only, Sgt Terry Kane, Leeds City. 7. Jock Cuthbertson. and finally. Little Ray Wood. Notts County.
This was taken in the early to mid sixties .Roger was appointed dog handler with Ron Woodward and both trained initially at Hutton in 1959. Les Bray had retired by 1968 when the first main amalgamations took place.

Posted with the kind permission of Sarah Wood

Sgt Raymond William Wood

Nottinghamshire Police Dog Section

Police Dog Training Course 1969 Epperstone Manor

Left to right

**, **,Pc Mel Symonds, Pc Roy Burditt (Leics), Sgt John Towlson, Insp Ray Wood, Pc Dave Houldsworth, Pc Bruce Seymour (Leics), **, Pc Douglas Stuart (Leics)

Produced with the kind permission (hopefully) of Dave Houldsworth and Sarah Wood who have supplied this photograph.