It's mating season, and sniffer dogs at training centre in city are chasing bitches instead of learning to detect bombs and drugs. The problem is the school doesn't have enough space to segregate the sexes

Bruno does not heed his trainers' commands these days. Instead of working on his olfactory skills to detect explosives and narcotics, the police Labrador keeps running after the bitch in heat who is his neighbour at the cramped Dog Training Centre (DTC) in Shivajinagar.

Bruno is not an exception. It is the same story with other police dogs brought from all over the state to the centre.

The root cause of the problem is a space crunch at the DTC, which does not have a place of its own for the segregation of female dogs in heat. As a result the DTC, though it has the best trainers at its disposal, is falling behind schedule with the current batch of dogs.

Jostling for space
A policeman attached to the training centre said, "As of now, 20 dogs from different parts of the state are undergoing training. But the problem is that there is paucity of training space and lack of proper kennels to keep these dogs in the conditions they require."

The DTC does not have a place of its own to train the canines. The dogs -- German Shepherds, Labradors, and Dobermans -- are trained in the open police training ground meant for parades, sports and other outdoor activities. They are housed in a small area in the vicinity of the ground. The DTC has made a demand for a separate place for dog training, but it is yet to be met by the state.

The Pune CID boasts of having the state's only full-fledged police dog training centre, which was established in 1965. Regular and refresher dog training courses are organised at the school by the chief dog master, who supervises the work of four dog-trainer head constables and attendants.

The dogs at the centre have been brought from Mumbai, Thane and even far-flung parts of the state such as Wardha, Nagpur and Dhule, among other places.

Training programme
The dogs are put through nine months of intensive training in tracking wanted people and the detection of different narcotics such as ganja, charas and opium, and explosives such as RDX, ammonium nitrate and TNT powders.

Deputy Superintendent Navale, who is involved in the training, said the demand for training dogs is likely go up even more in light of increased criminal and terror activities.

"Soon, we may get more than 50 dogs for training and then it will be a great problem," said Navale. "Even now, our problems worsen when any female dog is in heat. The dogs get distracted. The females should be kept at a distance to preventu00a0 males from getting distracted. But this is not possible for want of space."