Police – Hanover – spiked collars necessary?: dispute over police dogs flared up – panorama
Hanover (dpa / lni) – protection dogs and sniffer dogs have an important job with the police. But a dispute has broken out over the training of the animals. Since the beginning of the year, painful substances have been banned nationwide when raising or training dogs. With a Federal Council initiative, Lower Saxony will achieve an exemption from the new animal welfare dog ordinance for service dogs. This initiative is supported by the German Police Union of Lower Saxony (DPolG). Should certain aids remain banned, the police in some federal states would reach the limits of their ability to act as service dogs, if not beyond them, warned the state chairman of the union, Patrick Seegers, on Thursday.
The Lower Saxony Animal Welfare Association, on the other hand, criticized Lower Saxony’s initiative for using the controversial spiked collars. State chairman Dieter Ruhnke emphasized that protection and service dogs should also have alternative forms of training that conform to animal welfare standards, as well as successful animal-friendly handling.
“According to the Animal Welfare Act, it is forbidden to add pain and suffering to the training of an animal,” Ruhnke said. This ban has existed for 30 years and the legislature has now incorporated it into the current Animal Welfare Dog Ordinance. He fears that Lower Saxony’s application will subsequently legitimize illegal behavior in the training of police dogs.
In contrast to Lower Saxony, the state of Bremen supports the ban on spiked collars. “It’s time to fundamentally revise the system for training police dogs,” said Bremen’s Senator for the Interior, Ulrich Mäurer (SPD). Ruhnke has probably also announced North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate that they will use alternative forms of training.
According to the Senate, Hamburg has not yet made a decision on this question. The CDU in the Hamburg Parliament insists that the red-green Senate support Lower Saxony’s Federal Council initiative for the exception. Hamburg’s police need well-trained police dogs, said the CDU interior expert Dennis Gladiator of the German Press Agency. It is therefore important that the Animal Welfare Dog Ordinance does not stand in the way of appropriate training.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220120-99-785878/3