New explosives dog for Wellington District Police

Wellington Police District has a new explosives detector dog and handler.

Constable Steve Tribe and his German short haired pointer Kahn have just graduated from the Royal New Zealand Police College explosives detection course and are now the District’s one-stop shop for all bomb dog callouts. Their ‘patch’ extends into parts of Central and Eastern Police Districts including New Plymouth and Napier.

Senior Sergeant Mark Davidson, head of Wellington’s police dog section, says Constable Tribe and Kahn will be used for all jobs relating to explosives, bomb threats or suspicious parcels. The pair work closely with the district’s Specialist Search Group.

While in training Constable Tribe and Kahn assisted Wellington staff with work generated from the situation in Iraq. Now that they’ve graduated from the intensive explosives dog training programme, their expertise can be put to fulltime use.

"They’ll be our one-stop shop for all callouts relating to explosives work," Mr Davidson says. "We haven’t had an explosives capability for a while so have had to rely to some extent on the goodwill of other agencies. It’s great that we’ve now got our own capability and can in turn help the other agencies out."

Two-year-old Kahn, a former MAF dog, has quickly developed a nose for explosives. He can already detect 12 different explosives odours and is in constant training as new materials come on the market or are manufactured.

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