Bologna, February 10th 2018 – Vasco, Anubi, Axel, Apache and Gray: these are the five dogs of the municipal police dog core who, only in 2017, have discovered more than eight kilos of drugs including hashish, marijuana and cocaine in about one hundred control interventions of the terriotrio. Their flair allowed the agents to find, especially inside the Montagnola park and in Bolognina (one of the most beaten places here is the park of the Dopolavoro Ferroviario), illicit substances. In 2016, the findings were half, confirming that the small core has strengthened and evolved. Even the drug dealers try to evolve, but in vain: among the latest discoveries, the magnificent five have also discovered marijuana casings in cologne. But the scent has not led them astray, with all due respect to those who thought they had a good idea. Dogs beat the city every day: for them to find the amazing is a fun (the reward is the happiness of playing with a ball of string), and if they do not find the risk is that they feel frustrated. But their usefulness is not measured by the amount of drugs found: there is in fact no investigative activity behind the work of the dog breeders, but rather the prevention and control of the territory. Their presence discourages, regardless of what is hidden in the bushes.

To keep the leash of the five dogs there are six policemen, four men and two women, who have chosen to work 24 hours a day and more than a trade they carry out a mission. And there’s more: the watchful dog in fact has the burden and the honor to care for, train, nurture and treat his dog day and night. When the dog, normally at the age of 10-11, retires because his body can no longer keep the rhythms of the services to be covered, in a certain sense the specialty of his agent also retires because if he can not afford to house a second animal at home, then he must change his job within the body. His ‘colleague’, even if retired, remains his dog, and stays at home with him.

In addition to caring, the dog watchful commits to permanent training. For this reason the Municipal has equipped a field behind the shooting range of Via Agucchi to keep the animals in training, with the training method called ‘SOKKS’, based on a microparticle conditioning system: they are small polypropylene tubes with aromas inside artificial substances that reproduce the smell of target substances without containing the active substance. In this way their sense of smell is even more refined and training is simplified, since a single ‘tubing’ reproduces the emanation of different drugs.