Early history Dogs have been used in law enforcement since the
Middle Ages. Wealth and money was then tithed in the villages for the upkeep of the
parish constable's
bloodhounds that were used for hunting down
outlaws. The first recorded use of police dogs was in the early 14th century in
St. Malo,
France, where dogs were used to guard
docks and
piers. By the late 14th century, bloodhounds were used in
Scotland, known as "Slough dogs" – the word "Sleuth", (meaning
detective) was derived from this. Between the 12th and 20th centuries, police dogs on the
British Isles and European continent were primarily used for their tracking abilities. The rapid urbanization of
England and France in the 19th century increased public concern regarding growing lawlessness. Night watchmen were employed to guard premises, and were provided with firearms and dogs to protect themselves from criminals.
Modern era to try to track down the serial killer
Jack The Ripper in the 1880s. officer and
SA auxiliary during the
German federal election, March 1933, shortly after the
Nazi seizure of power One of the first attempts to use dogs in policing was in 1889 by the
Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police of London,
Sir Charles Warren. Warren's repeated failures at identifying and apprehending the
serial killer Jack the Ripper had earned him much vilification from the press, including being denounced for not using
bloodhounds to track the killer. He soon had two bloodhounds trained for the performance of a simple tracking test from the scene of another of the killer's crimes. The results were far from satisfactory, with one of the hounds biting the Commissioner and both dogs later running off, requiring a police search to find them. It was in
Continental Europe that dogs were first used on a large scale. Police in
Paris began using dogs against roaming criminal gangs at night, but it was the police department in
Ghent,
Belgium that introduced the first organized police dog service program in 1899. These methods soon spread to
Austria-Hungary and
Germany; in the latter the first scientific developments in the field took place with experiments in dog breeding and training. The German police selected the
German Shepherd Dog as the ideal breed for police work and opened up the first dog training school in 1920 in Greenheide. In later years, many
Belgian Malinois dogs were added to the unit. The dogs were systematically trained in obedience to their officers and tracking and attacking criminals. In Britain, the
North Eastern Railway Police were among the first to use police dogs in 1908 to put a stop to theft from the docks in
Hull. By 1910, railway police forces were experimenting with other breeds such as Belgian Malinois,
Labrador Retrievers, and German shepherds. In 1910 Major
Edwin Hautenville Richardson of the
Sherwood Foresters wrote to every chief constable espousing the use of dogs for police work, after his having reviewed their use in the military, and in France and Germany as above. Resulting from this,
Philip S Clay Chief constable of
Nottingham City Police petitioned his
Watch committee for £5.0.0d for a dog from Major Richardson, which was granted. On 26th October 1910 the dog arrived in the city, to assist officers patrolling at night, thus making the first territorial use of a specially-trained police dog in the UK. == Training ==