Dog Unit

There are more than 60 police dogs sniffing out crime, tracking missing people and enforcing public order on the streets of Essex.

The Essex Police Dog Unit, based at Sandon near Chelmsford, provides countywide support to specialist operations and supports officers in their day to day efforts to keep crime down.

Formed in 1953, the unit started with just two handlers and two dogs, a Doberman called Remoh and a German Shepherd named Senta.

As dogs proved more and more effective in supporting traditional policing, the section grew, eventually training dogs to track ground disturbance and scent and detain criminals.

Essex Police now has 39 general purpose police dogs, most of which are German Shepherds.

All general purpose police dogs are put through their paces with 13 weeks of intensive training at Sandon before hitting the streets with their handler. You can see Gunner, a pedigree German Shepherd, in training in our series of films listed in the useful links box on the right hand side of this page.

All dogs are put to the test by an independent examiner and will be expected to help find missing people, enforce public order and track scent to locate hiding criminals once they've made the grade.

Essex Police also has 12 drugs and weapon recovery dogs which are all of the Springer breed. Springer Spaniels make great search dogs because of their tireless nature and small size, a definite advantage when searching houses and cars.

Drugs and weapon recovery dogs are trained to search for and alert to their handlers a range of illegal drugs, weapons and their component parts.

There are also six explosive search Labradors that sniff out explosive devices. They are now working towards the Olympics and regularly search areas before dignitaries and VIPs arrive in the county.