Vijayawada: The city police have introduced three Labradors into the dog squad on Sunday.
City police commissioner D. Goutam Sawang inaugurated the special kennels built at the armed reserve grounds for the new squad of dogs. The three dogs Lucky, Jingo and Romeo were trained at the Integrated Intelligence Training Academy (IITA) in Moinabad.
All the three dogs were one-year-and-three months old and undergone eight months rigorous training. Lucky is a female and Jingo and Romeo are male canines. The dog squad of Vijayawada police has eight canines of which two have been recently retired from the service. With the latest addition of three new members the strength has increased to nine.
The three new members of the team have been trained in various specialisations. Lucky was trained to sniff, Romeo is a tracker and Jingo was trained to detect narcotics. The kennels for these dogs are specially designed as they are sensitive to the extreme climatic conditions. Each kennel was fitted with an air-cooler to regulate the body temperature.
Chief handler of city dog squad T. Srinivasa Rao said that all the dogs will have two hours of daily exercise and half-an-hour grooming and feeding session. He said the dogs need to be given a day’s rest after four hours of duty. The state government is spending Rs 73,500 per year on every dog for diet, medicine, vaccination and grooming.
