A bark with a bite to it

Press, 29 September 1988, Page 3

A bark with a bite to it

By

DAVE WILSON

Not many new recruits at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base, Wigram, have to be kept on a leash. But two recent arrivals with sharp teeth and grim expression have found their assertive behaviour commands respect from officers and N.C.O.S alike. Damon and Khan, two German shepherds, form the newly created R.N.Z.A.F. Wigram police dog team, charged with nightly patrols of 4km of the base boundary. Their human handlers, General Service Hands John McKinney and Peter Jackson, have taken their dogs through eight weeks intensive training at the Air Force dog section at Whenuapai. Wigram has not used dogs for security work in about seven years but the base adjutant, Flight Lieutenant Steve Morrissey, said it was felt timely to institute a guard dog patrol. “We have an extensive boundary to police and there have been occasional

thefts of pushbikes and problems with prowlers. There are a lot of valuable aircraft here and it is felt a guard dog acts as a good deterrent.” Erecting a high security fence would be too costly. “Anyway, we want to be seen as a part of the community. A high security fence would effectively divide us from the community,” he said. The Air Force base at Weedons too will be patrolled each night by the dogs. General Service Hand Jackson said that on a recent evening patrol his dog, Kahn, detected two people. “They were Air Force people, not intruders. But he detected them. I didn’t even see or hear them.” Another advantage of having a dog, said General Service Hand McKinney, was that Air Force policemen no longer suffered the same degree as insults as before. His reply to the question, what rank does an R.N.Z.A.F. police dog carry? “Any rank he wants to be.”