PD Blitz joins Queensland Police Service to serve in Townsville
One of Queensland Police Service’s newest recruits in Townsville is highly trained, follows orders to a tee — and just happens to have four legs instead of two.
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One of Queensland Police Services newest recruits is well-trained, great at following orders and has gone through rigorous training - the only diferrence is he has four legs instead of two.
Two-year-old German Shepherd, PD Blitz, has undergone training since he was a puppy and with his handler Senior Constable Liam Cooper, completed a three-month training course in Brisbane.
Ready to serve as a general purpose (GP) police dog, PD Blitz is equipped with skills such as tracking offenders or missing persons and apprehending offenders, bringing the dog squad in Townsville to a total of four male GP dogs and two female dogs, trained in drug, firearms and cash detection.
Senior Constable Cooper said the Townsville dog squad has seen a significant amount of growth recently, with two extra dogs and handlers set to start in the next six months.
“The process in relation to police dogs generally, the state dog squad training and development centre basically raises dogs, whether they be bred by QPS or purchased when they are young,” he said.
“When they are purchased young the development cell takes them under their wing and essentially starts training them in all the skills required to become a police dog.”
“From there, when they’re about 12 to 18 months of age, they’ll be teamed with their handler or prospective handler.”
Senior Constable Cooper said PD Blitz was still in his teenage stage of life and will put on more muscle as he works, but said he was rearing to go and “firing on all cylinders”.
“He’s 30kg at the moment and will put on some more muscle to get to around 33 kgs,” he said.
With an average working life of six years, police dogs generally retire around the age of eight.
“The reason we do that is for the majority of their life, they worked really hard for us so we tend to reward them in their retirement and let them become well-trained door mates really,” Senior Constable Cooper said.
The Queensland Police Service traditionally uses German Shepherds for general purpose dogs, as well as Belgian Malinois and Dutch Shepherds, while detection dogs are primarily Labradors.
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Originally published as PD Blitz joins Queensland Police Service to serve in Townsville
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