Wiltshire Police dog and handler scoop top award (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Wiltshire Police dog and handler scoop top award

9:27am Friday 10th February 2012 in News

Wiltshire Police dog Tyler and his handler, PC Tracy Doughty, are celebrating after beating 10 other police dog teams to qualify for the National Police Dog Assessments this April.

The pair competed against 13 police dog teams from across Wales and the south west on January 31 and February 2 at HMS Rayleigh and HMS Davenport in Plymouth.

Each dog and its handler was scored according to their performance in a number of police dog duties including crowd control, tracking, and searching buildings.

Overall Tyler, a six-year-old German Shepherd, Rottweiler cross, and PC Doughty scored 766 points, 138 points above the average score and only 22 points behind the winning team. This placed them third overall and second in the South West region.

Their high score secured a place in the National Assessments, where the top 1.5 per cent of all police dogs in the UK compete.

PC Doughty said: "I am proud to be able to represent Wiltshire Police in this prestigious competition and even more proud of Tyler for his performance which helped to secure our place in it.

"The initial assessments required a lot of training outside of work. Tyler and I intend to keep up this effort so that we can hopefully continue our success."