GDP officers travel to Cyprus for dog licencing assessments

Two officers from the Gibraltar Defence Police Dog Section travelled to Cyprus recently to assist their Sovereign Base Area colleagues to achieve their licensing standards.

GDP Kennel Manager PC23 Melvyn Brier and GDP Force Dog Officer PC68 Mario Johnson travelled to Cyprus to license the SBA police dogs.

There was also a requirement to carry out a survey of the Dog Section’s existing infrastructure constructed 15 years ago which will later be used to improve the kennel infrastructure in the GDP dog complex in Gibraltar.

Cyprus also suffers from high temperatures and humidity in the summer and the GDP hope to apply some of the practices observed to improve the overall structure in Gibraltar.

There are seven dogs in total at the base in Cyprus with five general purpose police dogs and two drugs detection dogs.

Mr Johnson carried out the annual assurance license which was delivered to UK National Police dog standard.

All dogs were successful in their respective licensing assessments.

The police dogs are required to be trained to a high standard and Mr Johnson met with Cyprus’ new handler Tarik Ozberkman.

Mr Ozberkman has just completed a 12-week course and local officers said he demonstrated a great level of discipline and tenacity when carrying out operational scenario assessments.

All dog handlers were also successful in their respective licensing assessments.