Police dogs visit rest home for Christmas

Police dog team entertain residents at Jane Winstone rest home.

A police dog handler's work is high risk, but every once in a while they get to do something pleasant.

Members of the Central Districts' police dog squad popped into a Whanganui rest home to wish residents a merry Christmas.

Whanganui police dogs Jake (5yrs), Hitch (1yr) and Rex (12wks) were instant hits with residents.

"Many of our residents have had animals all their lives. It was quite sweet - therapeutic," a spokesperson for the Jane Winstone Retirement Village said.

In fact the visit was such a success there is talk of the team returning to put on a demonstration at some stage.

Last week's visit though was just about spreading some love.

Residents had a chance to pet the dogs and talk to their handlers and other team members.

Handler Fraser Overweel said it was nice to have a chance for people to interact positively with the dogs.

"The residents really enjoyed the visit - we'd like to go back and put on a proper display for them," Mr Overweel said.

Whanganui has four dog units and they try to do something each Christmas - visiting hospitals and rest homes, he said.All police dogs live at home with their handlers, go to work with them and attend to jobs when required.

Inspector Todd Southall, the national co-ordinator of police dogs, earlier told the Chronicle that a lot of handlers' work is high risk. They attended incidents most members of the public would run away from.

Police attend thousands and thousands of jobs a year across the country.

"On a daily basis we're attending jobs where, without the dog teams, we wouldn't have been successful in apprehending or actually even preventing crime," Mr Southall said.

Puppies are born at the police dog training centre and find foster homes after about eight weeks. The dogs start 32 weeks of training at about nine months of age.

At the end of training, the dogs wear ceremonial coats to a formal graduation, which families attend.

Police dogs respond to more than 30,000 incidents each year.