Dogs as Policemen.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 11, 14 March 1908, Page 11

Dogs as Policemen.

Quite an unusual sight was witnessed on 6th January last on the racecourse of Vincennes, Paris. Instead of steeplechasers or trotting-horses, with their multi-coloured jockeys, the enclosure was taken up by a curious collection of policedogs and their masters or trainers. The “Club Francais du Chien de Defense, de Garde, et de Police,” an entirely private association of amateurs, had obtained permission to use the racecourse for a series of experiments, to which the police authorities were invited. About fifty persons in all, including three fashionable ladies, had come to witness the trials, the most interesting of which were the man-hunt and arrest of supposed burglars. Two men were dressed up as Apaches. They were thoroughly padded from head to foot with mattress-like coverings, and well did they need them, for the dogs took their business in earnest. Each man also wore an iron mask and a steel helmet, as well as iron gloves. A dog was first told to escort one of his prisoners to a given place. He marched close at his side, and woe to the man if he made the slightest attempt to escape. The dog would make a fierce bound at him and throw him down in an instant, catching, as a rule, the mattress padding where it was thickets, and burying his teeth viciously in the man’s supposed flesh. An armed attack was then represented. A man, representing a burglar, crouched with his back against a wall, stood concealed, armed with a club and a revolver. The trainer came along with his dog, and was not supposed to see the man in concealment. The imaginary burglar suddenly pounces out on him, fires a shot, and catches the man by the throat. The police-dog, however, hardly gives him time. In an instant he seizes the man and bowls him over, attacking him at the same time with his teeth. The man is allowed to use his club- as best he can on the clop's back, but the animal easily has the better of him, and the blows only stimulate his vigour.