Andrew Bagala
29 November 2009
Dog training was started by the Belgian Police in the 1890s and introduced in Uganda by the British colonialists. The Ugandan police now boast 59 classic dog breeds with amazing crime detecting and halting abilities.
As police detectives were busy carrying out a suspects' parade of 57 suspected rogues and vagabonds before they were taken to Nsangi Magistrate's court, one suspect was working a plan out.
Mr Eric Rafiki, 22, a resident of Makerere, didn't want to go to court for he knew it would be just a stopover to prison since he didn't have sureties. Rafiki had been arrested overnight on suspicion that he was a rogue but he saw an opening for his freedom. There was a reversing police truck that would cover him as he carried out his plan.
He slipped to the other side of the truck as if to give way for a lorry to park then walked freely out of the Central Police Station backyard. Rafiki thought his plan was well executed as no officer saw his movement, but before he crossed Buganda Road, "a good citizen" had already noticed his plan.
The dog barked, alerting the guards and then the chase started. Mr Rafiki was arrested, handcuffed and taken back to the station. Amusement and wonder filled the police officers and spectators at CPS. Single-handedly, a local dog, actually a stray one, had detected a suspect and helped in his arrest.
"That dog is very clever. You can't leave CPS barefoot without it pursuing you. It thinks that barefoot people at the station are suspects," a CPS guard told spectators. "Whenever there is chaos near CPS, it is the first to arrive."
Undeniably, it must be the dog's exceptional detection that allows the Uganda Police Force to let it to roam around their premises; they reap from its services. It must have been such ability that compelled the Belgian Police in the 1890s to start breeding dogs to help them in law enforcement and crime prevention. By 1958, these services had been extended to Uganda by the British colonialists. The Police Canine Unit kept less than 10 dogs but now boasts 59 and they are looking at breeding 300 more by July next year. The unit Commandant, Stephen Bwire, said dogs are naturally clever animals compared to other species in their group. "They detect things that we can't see with our own eyes or smell. That is why they use them in police work. Sometimes a dog can do something that will shock and make you wonder how it did," Mr Bwire said.
The canine unit
Although the number of dogs is increasing, the unit structures including kennels at Nsambya Police Barracks, have remained in the same shape for about two decades now. In fact, the tools they use to train the dogs and their handlers are those that were left by the British colonialists. Aside from this, visiting the unit is a special moment. The silence and cleanness are outstanding. Each dog resides in a two-roomed kennel: one room that allows it sight into the outside world and another dark one for resting. Truth be told, these structures are better than those of some of the neighbouring police officers.
Dog trainers say the dogs are trained to have maximum discipline because when they go to the field, they deal with dangerous objects that can negatively impact the lives of people and their property. "Every dog is trained for a different purpose. The dogs that are trained for crowd control are usually hot tempered, especially the German Shepherds. Those that work at Entebbe Airport are cool tempered," a police corporal who has been at the unit for more than a decade said.
Most dogs at the unit are classic breeds, with a few cross bred with local ones. "Each breed has a task it performs best; that's why we have to train particular dogs for particular tasks," said Bwire. The unit has three types of dogs - the sniffer, explosives and narcotics dogs.
Poodle and Border Collie classic dogs are used to sniff out explosives while German Shepherds, Boxers and Dobermans track down criminals. At Entebbe Airport, you will find Golden Retrievers that sniff narcotic drugs. A dog handler says they don't mind about the size of the dog but rather, its quality.
"We want classic breeds because they are easy to train as is the case with the local breeds. Local breeds are often inbred, which is a bad practice in animals because it affects the strength of the offspring and also increases chances of it carrying diseases. These inbred dogs tend to have chronic diseases. Scans have proved it, Bwire said.
How to breed a dog
To avoid inbred local dogs, the police buy classic puppies abroad expensively. Although police couldn't disclose the cost of these pups, online dog club traders say they go for more than Shs2m. Dog handlers expect the dog to acquire basic skills at the age of nine months.
Police dog experts say each puppy is exposed to objects it will deal with in its lifetime. Dogs meant to deal with explosives are exposed to materials that make bombs while sniffer dogs are trained to attack suspicious people without fear. In a demonstration at Nsambya Canine Unit, a pistol was hidden in the grass without the presence of the dog and its handler. Both were then brought to search for the object. When the dog handler reached the scene, he released it and when it found the pistol, the handler threw a ball away from the scene and the dog ran after it.
Bwire says interestingly, while training the dog to sniff, they train it to look for a ball but in the process of looking for the ball it sniffs explosives. Upon reaching the explosives, it lies down as a sign that the explosives are there, and thereafter it is given a ball. "Giving it a ball is an appreciation to the dog for what it has done. A dog is trained to look for a ball but when it is taken to the scene and released, in the process of looking for the ball, it sniffs explosives," a dog trainer says.
In the field
The Director of Counter Terrorism, Abas Byakagaba, says they rely a lot on the dog and its handler in their anti-terrorism work. "The first person to go to a crime scene is the handler and his dog because we believe in them for our protection," Byakagaba says.
The Inspector General of Police, Major General Kale Kayihura, says the army in Karamoja has also sought for the services of dogs in the region.
"Dogs are doing well in sniffing buried guns and ammunition in the manyattas in Karamoja region. The Karamoja police have even requested to have a canine unit there," Gen Kayihura says.
One of the outstanding dogs that brought praise to the unit was Buzzo; by the time it died, it had successfully worked on 180 cases. It was only rested after it was injured in an operation in Jinja when it fell off the police truck and survived with severe injuries. "Efforts to revive it were futile. It died a week after," Bwire said. But unlike other dogs, when police dogs reach retirement age or have severe injuries, the unit has to ask for authority from either the IGP or the Director of Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets to rest them. "We do it when dogs have reached the age of 13 or 14," he says. Gen Kayihura suggests that such dogs should be given medals for their police work.
Indeed, some dogs need medals but the stray dog at CPS will never get one since it isn't a police canine, though in the Rafiki case, it showed excellence and challenged the police. When Rafiki was rearrested, he faked a mental problem, undressed himself and refused to calm down. Officers threw him onto the truck but he was acting hysterical. He climbed onto the lorry top, jumped onto the roof of the building and ran as helpless officers shouted, watching him in awe. "The suspect is running away, get him! He is going to escape through the Buganda Road Court," a senior police officer shouted.
Rafiki made another turn and climbed down along George Street and disappeared from their sight. Silence befell everyone. "He has gone," a senior officer said as questions started flying as to why they left the suspect to escape. However, there was relief as another officer came in to report that as they watched the suspect escape, the police dog ran outside and waited for him on George Street, halting him in his tracks. The suspect was back in the hands of police. Another well executed task by man's best companion.
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