DogExpress
The eight members of Kolkata Police’s canine squad retired from their eight years of stellar service. A police dog’s life is often encircled by laborious work, persistent vigilance, and skimpy retirement benefits. But this canine squad can look forward to their upcoming relaxing years after a comfortable retirement.
The process of retiring these police dogs started weeks ago and followed the following steps:
1. After receiving a request from Kolkata Police, the state animal husbandry secretary sent a letter to the director of veterinary sciences. The instructions set up by the state veterinary directorate set up a medical board of five members to check each dog’s medical condition. Usually, dogs over eight years old fail these tests.
A senior officer stated, “The dogs above eight mostly lose their sniffing powers due to damage to olfactory nerves. In addition, these eight retired dogs have developed cataracts or spine issues and could not take full-length jumps. Once vets identified the medical condition, their medical report was sent to the commissioner’s office. After the commissioner’s permission, we retired the dogs.”
These eight canines were from different units; six were from explosives, and the other two were from the crime and narcotics units. Also, five from this squad were Labradors and the other German Shepherds.
A dog handler said, “These dogs had a busy schedule for eight years. They were continuously detecting explosives, tracking down criminals, and searching for narcotics, due to which their active average commissioning was reduced from 10 years to eight.”
2. The next step was searching for new homes for retired police dogs. Usually, handing over dogs to their handlers are kept as a first choice. Earlier, most retired dogs settled with handlers. However, if it doesn’t feel feasible, they can also be given to other unit members as a second option.
The third alternative was to hand them over to the Kolkata Police Official. If any of these choices don’t work out, outsiders could openly adopt them. But the applicant must pass stringent scrutiny. The applicant will be liable to provide information about their financial condition if their family is supporting their decisions or not, space to be allocated to the pet, and lastly, why they want to adopt.
Due to the retirement of eight canines at once, the size of the squad has dropped to 34. The official has started the replacement process and expects five explosive expert dogs in July.
in Chandigarh, India. 
