Dogsey

Police dog breeders who develop the next generation of four-legged crime fighters are celebrating the birth of their 700th puppy.

The milestone was reached at West Midlands Police's Balsall Common base and almost all of the German Shepherd dogs can be traced back to a handful of animals from Europe.

Experts started breeding dogs for police work in 1994 but only started enjoying success a decade later when stud Tag of Valatad and bitch Gunda Valkenplatz arrived from the Czech Republic and Holland.

They were just a few weeks old when they arrived in Balsall Common but since then they have transformed the fortunes of the police’s breeding programme.

Breed scheme manager Dave Raymond said: “Today more than 80 per cent of the dogs we breed and train in-house go on to be operational dogs and the scourge of criminals.

“But that wasn’t always the case. Through the 90s most of dogs we put through training were donated or sourced from external breeders at home.

“It was hit and miss, many didn’t make the grade and there were question marks over their health and temperament.

“We started looking at breeders on the continent and after much research spent several thousand pounds to bring home studs Tag and Tom – who were from the famous Czech border control breeding program – plus bitches Gunda, Keira and Asco.

“We had eight pups from Tag and Gunda’s first litter and all went on to be operational police dogs. They were exceptional, better than anything we’d seen previously.

“Almost every German Shepherd police dog on the streets of the West Midlands can be traced back to these – and the reason why our dogs possess amazing working ability, sociability and have very few health issues.”

The latest litter of dogs, which also include Springer Spaniels, have just started to take their first steps but soon they’ll be learning how to sniff out suspects and hunt down guns and drugs.

Recently police dogs have sniffed out drugs hidden inside a fake aerosol can and cannabis stashed in a car’s air vent.

Kim and Flash were the first dogs used on the streets of the West Midlands in 1951.