Police dog is any dog specially trained to assist the police and other law enforcement officials. People often use the term police dog to describe a particular breed of dog, the German shepherd . However, the police make use of many other dog breeds, including the beagle , Belgian Malinois , bloodhound , Doberman pinscher , Labrador retriever , and rottweiler .
The police train large, strong breeds of dog as patrol dogs. Patrol dogs help the police to find, chase, and capture suspected criminals. Other dogs help the police or other emergency personnel search for people who are missing or who have become trapped in debris as the result of an accident or disaster. Cadaver dogs assist investigators in the search for dead bodies. These dogs can even help find bodies underwater by sniffing the air above the water’s surface from a boat or the shore. Arson dogs can smell gasoline or other flammable chemicals that have been used to deliberately set fires. In places like airports, police and other security officials use police dogs to locate drugs, explosives, and guns. Also in airports, beagles help search luggage for smuggled food or plants.
Police use line-up dogs to identify suspected criminals. These dogs sniff items a criminal may have handled while at the scene of a crime. The dogs then try to identify, from a line-up of suspects, the person with the same or similar scent. Many courts accept such identification as valid evidence in the same way they would accept the visual identification of a suspect by a human witness.
