Hard-working dog teams from across Police, New Zealand Customs Service and Department of Corrections have been battling for the title of top dog and handler as they competed at the 51st Patrol and Detector Dog Championships this week.
This years' event wrapped up with a prizegiving held at the Dog Training Centre in Trentham this afternoon.
The overall winner of this years' competition was Senior Constable Aaron Senior and his dog Cole from Tasman District.
Inspector Todd Southall says, Congratulations to Aaron and Cole for an almost clean sweep. It's been an intense competition across three categories since Monday for all the operational dog teams."
"We've had experienced handlers in both patrol and detector categories competing this week. Consistency and confidence between handler and dog have determined who gets the points and a title.
Taking part in the Police Patrol Dog competition were six operational teams from Northland, Tāmaki Makaurau, Waikato, Tasman and Canterbury Districts.
Six narcotic detector dog teams also competed - two from Police (Northland and Tāmaki Makaurau), and two each from Customs and Corrections.
The winning detector dog team is the formidable crew of Senior Constable Patrick Derbyshire and Ripper from Northland Police - a previous winner of the Narcotic Detector Dogs - Alan Symes Cup.
"Each of the teams start with a set of points and they're put through a range of realistic but testing scenarios with points deducted for mistakes. The team that loses the least marks is the winner. The teams were marked on obedience, article retrieving, commands, tracking in grass, bush, operational scenarios, and criminal work, says Todd.
"All these dog teams do a fantastic job in helping keep our communities safe, says Todd. They provide a critical frontline response, detection and prevention capability whether it's on the street, at our borders or inside our prisons."
