Meet the new police puppies leading the fight against crime
Meet the newest trainee recruits to Staffordshire Police – four-legged officers Maya and Maunders.
The new police dogs have joined the force after being chosen from K9 Core, one of Europe's top breeders of working dogs.
WATCH: The police puppies in action
Both German Shepherds were chosen from a litter seven as perfect police dog candidates.
Quite often, litters will have a theme for the names and for this litter the letter M was chosen.
K9 Core owners Richard Harrison and Jess Dunsdon decided to name the male puppy Maunders, after dog handler police constable John Maunders, who has worked at Staffordshire Police for 29 years.
Pc Maunders has been part of the dog unit team for 14 years, been involved in the training of over 30 dogs.
He has formed a great working relationship with the team at K9 Core throughout the years, and as he will be retiring next spring, they wanted to show their appreciation with a special gesture.
Pc Maunders said: “This is a really exciting project for the dog support unit. The agreement with the breeder, K9 Core, has made it possible for us to acquire puppies rather than having to bring in older dogs.
"This means we can start training them the way we want them from the start without having to get rid of any bad habits they may have picked up.
“Maya and Maunders have been with us for a week and they are now nine weeks old. Once they get to this age, they really are completely different from newborns and are ready to learn a lot of basic commands. ‘Sit,’ ‘stay’ and ‘down’ can be taught quite quickly at this age. You can teach an old dog new tricks, but it gets harder as they get older.
"As we’re taking responsibility for training these pups right from the beginning, we can monitor their progress and hopefully, keep them on the right track.”
“The breeder looked out for potential candidates for us in the litter and helped us pick out the final two.
"As experienced dog trainers and handlers, their help and support is invaluable. Being able to let members of the public watch the puppies’ progress is something I’m looking forward to.
"I hope it will help people understand the hard work that goes into training a police dog but also what a great job the dogs can do for us.”
The name of the future crime fighting female pup was decided by way of a public vote.
Facebook users had a choice of either Maya or Meg and after a five-day-long poll and more than 21,000 votes her name has finally been chosen as Maya.
Both PD Maunders and PD Maya officially joined the force at the end of July, and are now undergoing initial training to socialise them and get them used to the environments that they will be working in as police dogs.
