Police dogs are often portrayed as crime fighters but when they’re still pups, they’re just as cute and cuddly as any house pet and Greater Manchester Police’s Tactical Dog Unit just received a litter of them with police officers fawning all over them just like any kid when a new pup is brought home.
Watch these adorable pups below.
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Video credit: Rumble
The puppies were born on September 13 with four males and five females joining the squad. The father is Mati, a working police dog, who mated with Sally, the unit’s brood bitch. It was a big catch, so to speak, for the squad as all but three of the pups will eventually receive training to become police dogs.
The newest members of the unit are eight weeks old and have already had their booster injections as they begin the process of officially joining the police department.
Inspector Jason Knight, 47, said: “The puppies were born on Friday the 13th, which is unlucky for some, but not for us!
“They don’t have names yet, but once they are homed, their new handlers will give them a name and start to train them.
“At the moment, they are all very cheeky and similar to each other – they do like to chew on trouser legs and shoelaces and are great with visitors.”
After they receive their shots, they will be started off on their play-based training. This includes fun activities like playing tug of war with a rag which will eventually evolve into tracking down criminals and taking them down by grabbing their clothes.
The pups will also be exposed to public places like airports to get them used to such an environment. Eventually, the hope is for the pups to graduate into general purpose police dogs.
Inspector Knight added: “It’s important to start socializing the dogs straight away so they won’t become fazed by any experiences while in public.
“As a general-purpose dog, the litter will deal with large scale disorder and crowd control and events such as football matches, and will also be able to track offenders down.
“An adult male german shepherd weighs 30 to 40 kilos and has a top speed of 30mph – meaning they can run faster than officers and criminals.
“We want to train them to become bold, confident and socially acceptable dogs to carry out a very important job.”
Once they become police dogs, they will work in that role until they retire once they become eight years old.
Replaced!