History of the Dog section

In September 1956, Sergeant Frank Riley of the Surrey Constabulary disembarked from the vessel Hinekura after making the long voyage from England. What brought him half away across the work was the desire of the then New Zealand Prime Minister, Sid Holland, to have a police dog section after he saw the Surrey Constabulary police dog school during a state visit to England.

Sergeant Riley arrived with his fully-trained police dog Miska, a nine-monthold dog named Dante, bitches Karen and Silver and twelve two-month-old puppies born during the voyage. Constable Colin Guppy, who handled Dante, joined Sergeant Riley to become New Zealand's first police dog handlers.

A Dog Training Centre was set up in Trentham in conjunction with the Police Training School. The Training School has since moved (to Porirua in 1981), but the dog training centre remains on the original site.

Handlers were appointed for each of the original puppies, with the first to receive his dog being Constable Harold Surgenor of Christchurch.

The handlers took their dogs home and over the next eighteen months they received regular training before they were ready for service.

Although today the dog section is an integral part of the New Zealand Police, the first ten years were a struggle. Vehicles and equipment were hard to come by for the dog section and there was no uniform. And, at one point the entire dog section came within two minutes of being scrapped.

Constable Guppy and his dog Dante were instructed to carry out a tracking exercise in the hills behind the Dog Training Centre. Guppy was told where the "offender" was last seen, cast his dog and picked up a scent. They tracked the offender for two hours before finding him at 10.58am. It was only later that Guppy found out that if he hadn't located the offender by 11.00am the dog section would have been disbanded.

Over the years the Dog Training Centre has developed an enviable record for its expertise. The quality of the training provided is recognised internationally.

In 1972, training was given to police officers from Victoria, Australia to help them set up a dog section. Since then, training and assistance has been provided to other Australian states and to Asian countries.

The past 24 years have also seen dogs trained for specialist work, with the first drug dog training course being held in 1976. This was closely followed by the introduction of explosive detection courses in 1977. More recent developments have seen the introduction of the Armed Offenders Squad dog course (1992), Accelerated Detection (1997) and Search and Rescue (1998).

The Dog Training Centre has developed from its humble beginning to a million dollar complex, which was officially opened in 1996 to mark the 40th anniversary of Police dogs in New Zealand.