New Nottinghamshire police dog Russo is showing great promise as he is trained by the force.
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00:00 My name is Dean Allen, I'm one of the dog trainers for Nottinghamshire.
00:05 Today we're doing an initial course for an experienced handler and a new dog called Police Dog Russo
00:10 to see if he makes the grade and hopefully get him licensed sometime early May.
00:14 We've been putting the dog through its paces, testing it, putting it under a little bit of pressure, making sure it can cope,
00:19 giving it lots of fun, lots of enjoyment, teaching it the exercises that we need it to learn.
00:23 We're teaching it to be suspicious, we're teaching it to search, for searching for property, to search for people.
00:28 We're teaching it to track, which all dogs can do, but a lot of dogs don't use that skill,
00:32 so we're looking at the skills that these dogs have got from nature and then helping them progress that skill
00:37 so they can assist us in tracking criminals.
00:39 And of course we're teaching the dogs to chase, which is part of their prey drive anyway, chase and detain people for us
00:44 and to be obedient and do the correct things when we ask them to do it.
00:48 He seems like a fantastic little dog, we're very confident that he's going to get through his training period.
00:53 These handlers and dogs are together for the full career, might be 8 to 10 years,
00:58 and the bond that they build up together is second to none.
01:01 Anyone who's got a pet dog out there knows that you can build a bond with an animal,
01:05 but you've got to multiply that several times to come anywhere close to the sort of bond we're building up
01:09 working with these dogs day in, day out, protecting each other in times of stress.
01:13 And that bond is what carries the handlers and the dogs through a lot of the very difficult situations
01:18 that they face out there operationally.
01:20 [Music]