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Jennifer Ngo

A litter of five Labrador puppies wag their tails hard at the cameras trained on them, yelping and barking playfully.
But they will not be cute family pets. Instead, at just two months old, they are already in training to bust drug smugglers, sniffing their way through a specially designed training course.
The working life of a police dog starts at birth.
The puppies will get exercise in a more informal way and in groups, until they get all their vaccinations. Then they will be put with foster families at six months, so that they can get used to the city and being around humans.
But the foster system will be phased out, in favour of finding families for puppies from within the force.
Displaying the litter, Chief Inspector Lee Cheuk-wai said he hoped placing puppies with experienced handlers and police officers would increase their chances of becoming successful police dogs.
"Sometimes civilian foster families would spoil the puppies and make it harder for them to get trained later," he said.
The litter's mother, a drug detection dog, had uncovered a drug operation just two days earlier, according to her handler.
"In every sense she's a working mother," said Jimmy Ha Yick-hang, inspector of training and support.
The police successfully bred 13 dogs this year, including Labradors, and Malinois.
Lee said about 80 per cent of puppies were successfully trained to become police dogs, but he hoped that placing them with police handlers would improve the success rate to 90 per cent.
Most dogs retire aged seven to 10, but no later than 10, said Lee, depending on the condition and breed. "Many of their handlers would want to adopt them. But if they don't, Hongkongers can adopt, or they pass the rest of their days here at the headquarters," Lee said.
The force has set up a memorial and also a cremation service for dogs that have died while still in service.


Foster system for Hong Kong police dogs to be phased out

Cute, but already training to bust drug smugglers. Photo: David Wong

News

Hong Kong

Foster system for working puppies will be phased out, in favour of finding families for puppies from within the force.
