There’s a new dog in town at the London, Ontario, Police Service – literally.

Police Service Dog (PSD) Carl will join 8 other canine crimefighters in the service’s well-funded K9 unit.

And these dogs do hard work – in fact, just last September, PSD Koda chased down a car thief to a dumpster in September.

But no matter how good you are, everyone could use an extra set of paws sometimes.

There’s a new dog in town

The dogs are such a large part of the London Police Force (seriously, they have more K9 units than we’ve ever seen!) that they even have their own Twitter page at @k9_london.

Twitter was there they decided to share the news of Carl coming on board.

We’re happy to introduce the newest member of our team PSD Carl (his handler, Sgt Wintjes loves the movie Caddyshack)…PSD Carl and PSD Koda just completed and certified in explosives detection. PSD Koda is now duel purpose, congrats #k9unit #londonpolicek9 #k9training pic.twitter.com/rWZ9qjW8Mm

— LondonPoliceK9🇨🇦 (@k9_london) January 7, 2021

As you can see, one can learn a lot from a Twitter post. Not only will Carl be partnered with Sgt. Wintjes – who is described as a huge Caddyshack fan (as if we’re not all fans!), but he and Koda just received even more advanced training.

Dual-purpose doggos

The explosives trainings both dogs just completed now makes them dual-purpose police dogs – so it sounds like they’ll be busy.

In early December, they even got a hand from London, Ontario’s Centre of Forensic Sciences that brought along some unique odors for the dogs to be trained on.

Today our friends from the Centre of Forensic Sciences came down and allowed our explosives dogs to train on some unique odours #k9unit #londonpolicek9 #k9training #k9bombdog pic.twitter.com/kuZ3ZlKIdV

— LondonPoliceK9🇨🇦 (@k9_london) December 4, 2020

According to CTV News, Carl went through “16 weeks of tracking, open/building/evidence search, protecting handlers, agility, and of course, obedience” before he could join the squad.

A big event

Not every department is lucky enough to have K9 units, since they can be expensive and require special accommodations.

LPS’s K9s were all acquired mainly from Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic (three places where German Shepherds, Labradors, and Belgian Malinois are trained to become police dogs). According to the police K9 website, they “Start training between 15- and 18-months old.”

“Training for a general purpose dog is 16 weeks and includes tracking, open search, building search, evidence search, handler protection, apprehension, obedience, and agility. To be certified the dog must follow a 1.5 kilometer track that is at least 45 minutes old across various types of surfaces including pavement, and locate five articles.”

Early this morning, a person in distress and self-inflicted wounds fled prior to police arrival. PSD Kylo tracked and located them in need of medical attention. Officers provided life saving measures and ensured they were transported to hospital for life saving treatment. #k9unit pic.twitter.com/crBtE8VN7h

— LondonPoliceK9🇨🇦 (@k9_london) May 29, 2020

And now Carl and Max have taken a step up the latter with further explosives training.

But they aren’t the first – that was Cooper, “a six-year-old black lab-border collie mix” that is “officially certified to detect explosives ranging from home-made concoctions to commercial-grade materials..”

If you want to learn about the London Police Service’s K9 unit, be sure to scroll down below to see a day in the line of duty for K9s Max and Cooper.

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Source: CTV News, Twitter – @k9_london, Facebook – London Police Service Canada