We all like to see dogs put to some useful purpose when the opportunity arrives, and for this reason I welcome the announcement that the Home Office is making experiments with the object of encouraging chief constables in suitable districts to supply their men with them while on night duty. There can be no objections on humanitarian grounds, for breeds will be employed that would not attack a lurking man unless he assaulted their master. Then their intervention would be justifiable. Constables doing their nightly rounds in country places or in the suburbs of large towns would find dogs of the utmost service.
Their acute senses of smell and hearing enable them to detect a man in hiding whose presence would escape the notice of the constable, Burglaries are far too common all over the country, the men who perpetrate them as a rule being highly skilled, and acquainted with the movements of the police. It is easy for them to conceal themselves until the constable has passed on. Householders in a town I know a few miles out of London are constantly being raided, and some of them are really alarmed. Many other smaller offences are frequently committed, to the loss and annoy-once of law-abiding people. I always urge my friends to keep a Tail-Wagger as a guard in the night hours. If they have a sharp, sensible dog he will tell them if any unauthorized persons are about.
I had the opportunity recently of visiting the Government experimental school a mile or two outside Newbury in Berkshire, and was much interested in what I saw. Foi police work, two classes of dogs are necessary. Those of the bloodhound type are unrivalled for tracking wrong-doers or revealing the whereabouts of persons who have lost themselves in lonely places. It is thought, however that their stamina would be improved by a cross with an otter hound. The progeny are hardy and good trackers, but it remains to be seen how they will shape bu a really cold line, a kind of hunting in which Dloodhounds excel If well-trained hounds were stationed at certain key points easy of access, they could be of great value, For the other kind of dog there should be a very wide demand.
That is, a dog that would run through gardens, shrubs or wooded country to rout out anyone who might be concealed. He would also have to be trained in liaison duties —that is in carrying messages from and in the reverse direction. Some I saw at the experimental school set the constable to the police station zest, going backwards and forwards at top speed. After giving trials to about their task with, the utmost a numer of different breeds, including some that are used on the continent, the authorities have decided that Labradors are the most suitable for general purposes, being hardy, sensible and easily trained.
The dogs at Newbury are under the charge of Mr. H. S. Lloyd, who has had a wide experience of gun-degs, and whose trainer has been very successful in training for field trials. Tail-Wagger owners would be delighted to see the quiet methods pursued in training, and the obvious attachment of the dogs to their trainers Preston North End have secured ihe transfer of Lowrie, Swansea Town's 18-year-old inside right and as part of the transfer have given the Welsh club two inside forwards, Joe Beresford the old Aston Villa player, and Leslie Vernor, formerly of Bur:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.