50th Anniversary National Police Dog Trials
by Baron Halpenny, LincsMag Editor-in-Chief.
Date: 10 May 2010
The prestigious 50th Anniversary National Police Dog Trials were hosted by Lincolnshire Police during 7th-9th May 2010.
This was the first time that Lincolnshire Police had hosted the three day competition, which is held on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
Each of the 23 competitors undertook the various exercises in locations throughout the county.
This culminated in the final day, held on Sunday 9th May at Lincolnshire Police Headquarters, in conjunction with the Force Open Day.
The country's most highly skilled and experienced police dog handlers and dogs were put through their paces in clever exercises that tested a wide range of abilities such as tracking, searching, stand off, weapon attack, obedience and crowd control.
The aim of the trials was to encourage the professional development of police dog handling, share good practice amongst the British police forces and ultimately provide the general public the enjoyment of seeing the top dog teams compete against each other in a variety of disciplines.
This extremely popular attraction was held before an estimated 8,000 strong crowd who attended the popular Police Open Day, as the crowds of onlookers were delighted and entertained with the skills displayed in the exercises during which the highly trained police dogs obeyed the handler's commands, scaled obstacles, chased and detained an attacker, and chased and stood off a criminal.
I think special mention must go to the officers that had to be the “bad guys” in these exercises, as it’s not easy going up against these powerful police dogs, even if they are highly trained and the officers are well padded.
Well done PC Neil Gridley (1298) Dog Handler who was one of the “Bad Guys” with the gun ...
... naturally he lost every time to the dogs!
At the end of a very successful and entertaining day, the scores were finally tallied and the winners of the categories announced.
The overall National Police Dog Trials Winner for 2010 is Sergeant Simon Young of Central Scotland Police and Police Dog Ralph.
Sergeant Simon Young was under slightly more pressure than most and indeed he did outstandingly well with his performance considering that his wife was imminently due to give birth to their second child in Scotland.
To give you some idea of the pressure upon him, Sergeant Young had to dash back to Scotland on the Saturday of the competition, only to then make the five-hour trip back to Lincolnshire for the Sunday.
Despite this, Sergeant Young put in an impressive overall performance, achieving a total score of 807 out of 1000.
This year's competition was extremely closely contested, as shown by the fact that there were with only 30 points separating the first and the fifth placed competitors.
P.C. Bob Newham of Lincolnshire with Police Dog Razor, won two awards for the highest score in Phase 3, and came in overall fourth place in the competition.
"I'm delighted to have won these awards, and am pleased and proud of Razor's performance", said P.C. Newham "I'd like to thank the home crowd for their warm support on the final day, which made it a particular memorable event and special win."
On his police dog P.C. Newham had this to say, "Razor is going from strength to strength in his skills and abilities", and he concluded, "I'm certain he has a successful career as a police dog ahead of him and look forward to the chance to compete with him again in future competitions".
I am sure he will and both continue to do Lincolnshire proud.
50th National Police Dog Trials 2010 - Winners
- First - Sergeant Simon Young - Police Dog Ralph - Central Scotland Police
- Second - Sergeant Paul Glennon - Police Dog Spud - Devon and Cornwall Police
- Third - P.C. Stephen Ritchie - Police Dog Amstel - Tayside Police
- Fourth - P.C. Bob Newham - Police Dog Razor - Lincolnshire Police
