ITBP to train Royal Bhutan Police dogs

As a goodwill gesture, India has decided to train five special sniffer dogs for the Royal Bhutan Police at the famed canine training centre of paramilitary force ITBP.
Officials said the Chandigarh-based dog training centre of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police will train five sniffer and tracker dogs for the police force of that country after a request was made by the authorities in this regard.
The ITBP dog training centre has been declared as the centre of excellence in this domain.
The dog breeds, which will be trained to aid police personnel in counter-narcotics and anti-sabotage tasks in Bhutan, will be drawn from the local Labrador and German Shepherd breeds and they will form the first elite squad of sniffer dogs for the Royal Bhutan police trained for specific tasks, a senior official said.

This is the first time that any Indian police dog training centre has been entrusted with such a job which involves diplomatic relations. The entire exercise is a goodwill gesture for the neighbours and there are no costs involved, the official added.
The dogs are expected to be trained for about 2-3 months and then they would be handed over to the authorities of the Royal Bhutan Police.

The ITBP is credited with having successfully introduced the first-ever breed of 'Malinois' dogs to assist troops during patrolling in Naxal-affected states of the country.
The credibility of the ITBP dog squad can be gauged from the fact that they were specially called in recently by security agencies to sanitise the swearing-in ceremony venue of the new cabinet at Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt and also to sweep the hotels and venues where leaders from SAARC countries were staying prior to meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The ITBP is mandated to secure the 3,488-km long Sino-Indian frontier.