Specialist PSNI dog team lifts top award

It is the first time that a PSNI handler and his police dog – four-year-old Dutch Herder Jake – have won the ‘Police Dog Team Humanitarian Action of the Year Award’.

Chief Superintendent Kevin Dunwoody, from the PSNI’s Operational Support Department, who nominated the pair for the award said Jake and his handler had tracked and located a missing woman on an autumn night last year when temperatures had dropped below freezing.

He added: “The officer displayed his expertise not only in dog handling but also in his management of the female casualty.

“The medical opinion is that if the team had not located her when they did, there could have been tragic consequences.”