History
The Police Dog Unit formerly known as the Police Dog Training Centre was set up in 1952. Late Inspector Picot, after having successfully attended a course in dog handling in England returned with two trained Alsatian dogs “Kim” and “Rustler”. They were inducted at the Police Training School.
Later retired Inspector Fayd’herbe introduced another she-pup named “Linda” which was trained at the Police Training School. Since then, The Mauritius Police Kennel breeds its own dogs.
In 1965, the kennel was transferred to the Special Mobile Force (SMF).
Role of the Police Dog Unit
Police dogs play a vital part in today’s operational policing role. Some dogs are trained as drug sniffers to perform searches for dangerous drugs, others are trained to carry out the following duties:
- Watching and warding
- Tracking
- Searching
- Identification
- Discovery
- Arrest
- Guarding
- Escort
- Protection
- Crowd control at football matches, meetings and places of public entertainment
- Foot patrol