The Canine unit of the Uganda Police Force has organized the first ever national dog walk on Kampala streets.
The walk that happened on Saturday saw dogs walk Kampala streets from Mackenzie drive in Kololo,Acacia Avenue and later Kanjokya street.
According to Sargent Herbert Nangoli, the chief instructor of the police canine unit, the street wal was organized in a bid to help educate Ugandans on how dogs are useful animals not only as pets at home but for also many other uses.
Dogs can be used in many specialties. We train them to detect explosives, drugs but also track criminals. We also train them to carry out search and rescue. In case someone gets lost somewhere and don’t know where they are, we can use dogs to track, find and then rescue them,” Nangoli said.
He noted that they are soon developing capabilities for dogs to detect cash but also to help rescue victims trapped in disaster areas like during collapsed buildings, mud and landslides.
“We call upon Ugandans to embrace proper training of dogs and can seek police services in this area,” the chief police canine unit instructor said.
Geoffrey Twesigye, a dog breeder described the walk as a great experience to share ideas with fellow dog breeders but also hear from experts.
“This was a great experience to us the dog lovers but also an opportunity to that police think of us, get educated them as experts and in return we explain to them the challenges we face in rearing dogs. This was an opportunity for the dog lovers to get exposure and be recognized the public,”Twesigye said.
He noted that this was also another opportunity to ensure dogs are healthy, away from the cages and kennels where they are always kept.
“We also got to know the capabilities of our dogs and the limits through the interaction with experts from the police canine unit.”
Canine unit
The Uganda Police canine unit that was almost buried was between 2011 and 2013 “born again” to ensure it augments police operations.
Whereas then most of the dogs were concentrated in Kampala, many were deployed at almost all stations in the country.
This came after the unit started breeding its own dogs at their breeding and training centre in Naggalama in Mukono district.
The dogs from the unit are deployed to fight crime, in public order management operations, track suspects but also detect explosives, just like they were used during the November 2020 bombings in Kampala.
The police dogs have in the past helped in fighting criminality in Karamoja as well as tracking and helping in the arrest of suspects in Kampala.
The most recent and common one was in April when the dogs helped trace four men who had raped and robbed a woman in Kampala.
The thugs armed with pangas broke into the house of a woman(names withheld) in Kawempe at around midnight before sexually assaulting the victim and later robbed her of several house items.
“The victim reported the matter to Police. Officers from Kawempe Police working with K9 introduced Boela, a dog which helped track down the suspects for a distance of 250m from the crime scene.The dog entered a structure that was harbouring four men who were arrested immediately after the victim’s identification,”Owoyesigyire said.
He noted that the victim was able to identify Joseph Katabi, Mike Sserwadda, John Musa and another one identified as Musinguzi the clothes they were donning during the incident.