NEW YORK'S DOG POLICE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 91, 16 April 1908, Page 7

NEW YORK'S DOG POLICE.

A BELGIAN SHEEP-DOG'S FIRST ARREST. Out in the suburban wilds of Washj ingion, New York, overlooking the ! Hudson, and the Palisades, the New ! lork police has established the head- . quarters of its dog brigade. The fame ° c t1? 6!- gs of M> LePine, the Prefect ;or iolice of Paris, where, after a ; year s trial,.the.force was increased to : four hundred, reached New York in I due course, and when a series of crimes in the lonely outskirts of the I city remained unpunished owing to j the escape of the criminals, it was determined to. call-to the aid of the dogs, who might follow up the scent. Lloodhounds were first tried, but founa unsatisfactory, and a police lieutenant was despatched to Ghent, where the .dog police system was introduced eight years ago, and found so , successful that other European cities have r.dopted it. With somp' dimculty four Belgian sheep dogs were procured, and one Groenandaelof the varieties used by the Ghent Police Department. One of these died after importation, and an Airedale bred in New York Was bought to take his place. The dogs have been given a three months' course of training and last month were put on patrol duty with the exception of one, which is engaged in the maternal task of rearing a litter of seven which she has just presented to the force to be j brought up to police duty from puppy- | hood. If the experiment turns out as / is expected in the next month or two I the dog police squad .nay be increased

till its strength is numbered by the hundred.

Lieutenant Wakefield, a dog lover himself, who has been entrusted by the Commissioner of Police 2 General Biagham, with the institution of the dog brigade, says that, lie has every reason to be satisfied with the first achievement of Max, one of the police dogs, after they had been assigned for regular duty to the Parkville precinct, an out-of-the-way district between Brooklyn and Coney Island. When the night platoon of policemen went out on their beats, the dogs were turned out on their own account. On the third night of duty Max, the Belgian sheep dog, was heard scratching at the station-house door soon after 11 o clock. The dog made for the first man in uniform and tugged him by the trousers, leading him out with his barks. Max guided him to a lonely spot some distance away, where a man was lying in a drunken stupor and in danger of freezing to death, as the mercury was going down to zero, with a bitter winter wind. The man' was taken to the police station, and -when revived by the ambulance surgeon, locked upon the charge of intoxication^ Max, the dog that had saved his life, was entered on the charge sheet as having made the arrest, and he received as his reward the first collar of New York's dog police. When sent out on patrol duty, the police dog wears a leather muzzle, allowing him to bark but not to bite. A snap-catch, however, enables his human comrade to unmuzzle the dog instantly if teeth are needed to help the policeman's baton on a combative burglar. In inclement weather the dog is protected by a waterproof canvas Manket. Nogi, the Groenandael, is a, fine, sturdy, well-set-up felackhaired dog with large erect ears, while Jim, the Airdale, has picked up the lessons given him in his training with all the intelligence and grit of his ancestors. The first piece of instruction to be learnt was to recognise as a friend only a man in the regular brass-buttoned uniform, and to regard all m others with suspicion. Much patient work was required to get the dogs to respond only to the call of the policeman's whistle, a special titbit rewarding the" dog for a prompt hurry to the signal when sounded as far as a, quarter vof a mile away.