Dog Section - About Us - Surrey Police

Dog Section

Police dogs are a huge asset to the police service. Not only do our canine friends help us to deter criminals and safeguard the public (would you want to take on a German Shepherd?), they also offer us something quite unique: an amazing sense of smell.

A dog´s nose is many, many times more sensitive than a human´s, and so is ideal for tracking or detecting, whether it be drugs, criminals, bombs, stolen property, or people who have lost their way. The canine sense of smell is so finely tuned that you can train to detect a number of different substances. We train dogs to detect drugs, explosives and firearms.

Although it´s true to say that all dogs can be trained, not all people can give that training. Getting a dog to want to use its abilities to order is a skill in itself. At Surrey Police, we have one of the top five dog training schools in the country, where our highly skilled team can hone the canine instincts, for both the Surrey Police dogs and for clients all over the globe.

Dog Training

We use all kinds of breedes within the police service and customs - these are mainly German Shepherds, Labradors, Spaniels, Border Collies, Rottweillers and Dobermans.

The kinds of roles we can train for are:

• Passive Dogs – used in the detection of drugs on persons
• Proactive Dogs – used in the detection of drugs in a specific area, such as a warehouse, airport baggage control, nightclubs, schools or offices
• Explosives Dogs
• General Purpose Dogs – what most people recognise as a police dog, used for tracking, searching for persons or property, and the chasing and detaining of fleeing offenders

Training to suit your needs

We will train dogs according to customers´ individual requirements.

For example, we can train one of our dogs here at the school and then export it to the client. In this instance, an assumption is made that a handler is ready and waiting at the receiving end. The handler can a undergo a brief period of familiarization at the end of training if required.

We only train professional dogs for police, customs, prison service and security service. If you want your pet dog trained there are many local clubs that can help you.

If you would like to know more about what we do at the Surrey Police Dog Training School, and what we can do for you and your organisation, please contact Jude Brendon via our switchboard (0845 125 2222) for further information.

Currently, we are training dogs to become both Passive and Proactive. Not an easy task for the dogs, but one we are helping them to master. Such a dog would become a huge asset to anyone involved in the detection of drugs, not just for reasons of cost but also accessibility.

Operational Dog Section

Whether used in drugs, property and firearms searches, or helping to find missing persons, or being involved in public, sometimes violent disorder, the Operational Dog Section has played an integral part of the Surrey Police´s service to the community since the 1940s.

The Operational Dog Section is a county-based resource, supporting the four divisional policing areas within the county.

By using this system, Surrey Police ensures area responsibilities, creating stronger links to the local officers on the ground, and the local community. Information can filter quickly from the areas of crime and/or conflict to the local handler, who can therefore react efficiently to the problems on his/her patch.

The issue is not about how many arrests the dogs can help make, but about acting as a deterrent.

For instance, our dogs are used to help disrupt the flow of drugs. A business or club or school that is aware of a problem but does not know how to resolve it can contact us to take the intermediate step. With their extremely acute sense of smell, our dogs are trained to find not just people who are carrying drugs, but even those who have come into contact with an illegal substance.

Perhaps the most common perception of a police dog is the German Shepherd. These are, indeed, the most popular General Purpose dogs as used by the Surrey Police (and most police forces), as they not only have the combination of size, controllable aggression, stamina and will to work, but they also accept training willingly. We will also consider other breeds, such as Rottweiller, Doberman, Malinois and Giant Schnauzer, but this is by no means an exhaustive list.

At the Surrey Police Dog Training School, we are always willing to meet with the public, and are open to arranged visits to allow you to meet the dogs, and their handlers and trainers. If you would like to find out more, please contact the Public Events Manager.

Surrey Police Dog Training School

In the field of criminal work, whether searching, tracking, protection or guarding, our canine companion is an indispensable tool. Police and security units all over the globe rely on the formidable powers of dogs – namely their senses of smell and hearing – to tackle the problems that would otherwise prove near–impossible for their human counterparts.

Canine instincts and abilities must be harnessed, however, if they are to be used to their full potential – any domestic dog owner will be able to tell you that. The same is true of those dogs being used on the front line of law enforcement. The well-known saying "You can´t teach an old dog new tricks" may be true, but you can train a dog to do pretty much anything you want. The trick is knowing how.

Surrey Police Dog Training School was the first EdExcel Foundation Approved Centre for Dog Training, and CENTREX Quality Assured status. It is one of the top five largest and busiest dog training schools in the UK.

Although our high levels of skill, method and dedication are recognized all over the globe, and we offer our training services to security companies and police forces from numerous countries, our core focus is the delivery of training to ACPO police services throughout the UK.

To date we have trained eight customs explosives search dogs, and we have ongoing partnerships with Singapore Police and Hong Kong Customs. Through our partnership with Euro-Customs Paris, we are working towards training passive drugs dogs for both Lithuanian and Latvian customs.