Best breeds for police work

Given their versatility and high-performance potential, it is only natural that police forces around the world have long made use of working dogs. Police dogs can undertake protection work, search for explosives or drugs, track missing people, support public order, and more.

Policing requires intelligent, physically robust, and courageous dogs who are highly obedient, temperamentally stable, and driven with a strong work drive. Only a handful of breeds have proven consistently suitable and include Belgian, German, and Dutch Shepherd Dogs, certain Spaniels, and the Labrador Retriever.

In the UK, German and Belgian Shepherds are most commonly employed as general purpose police dogs and are trained to assist officers with tracking and apprehending suspects, support the policing of planned and unplanned events, search for missing people, recover evidence, control other dangerous dogs, and protect their handler in dangerous situations. Spaniels and Labradors have a particularly keen sense of smell, so will be used to detect drugs, money, explosives, weapons, and even SIM cards. In countries such as Israel and the US, Belgian Shepherds are most common and trained to fulfil both protection and search roles.

Occasionally, other breeds may also be employed. While rare today, the Bloodhound was traditionally used for tracking escaped prisoners and missing people, and certain police forces are even rescuing Staffordshire Bull Terriers who are then trained to find firearms, explosives, cash, and drugs. In India, the Keralan police department recently obtained four Jack Russell Terriers to train as search dogs. If successful, the breed is highly likely to be used elsewhere too.