NZ Police's Paw Blacks relinquish team title in Australasian Police Dog Championships

October 18, 2018

For the first time in 20 years New Zealand’s playing host to the trans-Tasman canine competition.

The Paw Blacks have gone down in the Australasian Police Dog Championships, with New Zealand Police relinquishing the patrol team trophy to Victory Police while South Australia won the individual patrol dog championship.

There was some silverware for New Zealand however in Trentham, Victoria, with Auckland Police's Floyd and Senior Constable Chris Harris winning the narcotic detector dog title, adding to their New Zealand Police title won in September.

New Zealand’s Mario and Senior Constable Mark Chapman and Mist and Constable Elyse Lewis finished third and fourth respectively in the individual patrol dog championship.

E-Zak and Senior Constable Hamish Todd from Wellington Police finished second in the explosives detector category.

Fifteen handlers and dogs from New Zealand, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Federal Police took part in the event.

Inspector Todd Southall, NZ Police national coordinator: police dogs, said the standard of competition was extremely high across all categories.

"This is really encouraging for the development of dog sections in New Zealand and Australia and I congratulate the winning teams and all the competitors and officials who have supported the event, it’s been a fantastic week," he said.

"There’s a lot of pride at stake whenever the championship is held, it’s a great way to benchmark ourselves against one another, to see how each of our jurisdictions operate, build partnerships and have some keen rivalry at the same time."

All of the events were based on the skills and decision making they need in their operational roles.

SHARE ME

More Stories