This 4-YO Gold Medallist Is the Newest Star of Delhi Police’s Dog Squad!

The Delhi Police are celebrating their newest star—a well-trained young recruit who can identify and discriminate between scents, cross hurdles swifter than anyone else and lead tracks like a professional.

The star recruit in question is four-year-old Labrador, Babu, who has won his department its first ever gold medal in the tracking test.

Babu was competing against 35 other teams in the Dog Competition at the recently-held 61st All India Police Duty Meet in Chennai, and winning the competition was indeed no mean feat. Babu was up against previous rank holders from other states, but his energy and do-it-like-a-pro attitude were enough for him, to secure the win.

Speaking to the Times of India, Pawan Kumar, Babu’s hander said, “Even though he was participating for the first time, he got us the medal.

For one year, he paid complete attention to his training. We have practised all the activities in the competition, like sniffing and refusal of food, a thousand times.”

Delhi Police Dog Squad won the Gold medal in tracking event at 61st All India Police Duty Meet -2018 held in Chennai pic.twitter.com/vJuvdQyVHi
— Dipendra Kumar (@dipendrakumar03) March 15, 2018

So, what all activities do the canines have to do, to win the competition?

Obviously, the primary goal of the competition is to see how the dogs perform on-field and so it involves activities that they usually have to undertake when on duty. For the tracking test, the four-legged recruits underwent an obedience test, the refusal of food test, and had to cross two hurdles that were 3-feet-high. The other tests were—seek and find, scent discrimination, scent identification and tracking on lead.

Babu, an efficient hero, finished all of them before anyone else. He seems to know exactly when to work with unwavering focus and when to let loose and just be a dog.

“At the shelter, he’s just like any other dog, he roams around and plays with the ball. But at work and when he has to compete, he just pulls all his energy into the task, and that’s what has worked for us,” says Pawan, adding that “Also, he’s kind of a show-off, and likes attention. When he knows that all eyes are on him, he gives his best.”

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Maybe that helped Babu secure the win for the Delhi Police even further. It certainly got him a lot of attention from spectators and new fans. He has been receiving a lot of visitors since the tracking test, and Babu happily poses for pictures with them.

Rajan Bhagat, DCP Crime (CRO) is all praises for the canine recruit-handler duo. “Babu and his handler have performed really well in other activities too in the past one year. I think what has worked this time for us is the focussed approach in winning the medal. The training was focussed on winning gold this year,” he told TOI.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

Feature image courtesy: Facebook/ Utthara Unni.

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