NEW DELHI: The practice of using combat canines for ceremonial drills like presenting flowers to greet VIPs should be stopped and they must only be utilised for specific tasks of catching suspects and sniffing contraband and IEDs, a panel comprising police dog experts has recommended.

The specialists have suggested that a separate “demo dog unit” could instead be raised for performing in jamborees to entertain the audience during the regimental functions of the police and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs).

The panel of experts, drawn from various state and central police forces apart from the Army, made the recommendation during the last two national police K9 seminars, the last being held in February this year.

Police dog units are referred to as K9. The experts stressed that trained canines are a very vital resource for security, intelligence and customs-related operations and making them sit on stools, presenting a flower bouquet and performing drills like ‘joker dog’, and ‘circus dog show’ must be avoided and preferably stopped.

“With the police and CAPFs raising a large number of canine squads over the last decade or so, the practice of using them as show dogs crept in gradually. Some police organisation did it first and the others followed,” a senior police K9 officer said. Conduct of drills for VIPs by these dogs is nothing wrong, in fact, it should be a part of their training and obedience course, but the operational and combat dogs should be spared and some reserve canines can be earmarked for such things, the officer said quoting the discussions of the conference.

Operational dogs are those which are trained in detecting improvised explosive devices (IEDs), sniffing narcotics etc.