With the objective of adding more teeth to their force, the Kerala Police has inducted four Jack Russell terrier puppies – a breed which is native to the United Kingdom — in their K9 squad.

These foreign breed dogs were handed over by P. Prakash, Southern Region Inspector General to the Assistant Commandant S. Suresh who is in charge of the K9 , the official dog squad of KP.

Sharing details about these dogs, Prakash told the media that each of them cost Rs.25,000 and have been purchased from a Coimbatore-based breeder. While two of them are three months old, the other two are two-and-a-half months old. All the four will be provided nine months training at Thrissur’s Kerala Police Academy.

The reason the cops opted for a smaller breed like Jack Russell terrier is because they are very good at sniffing explosives and narcotics and they will be useful in the wake of a huge jump in drug use among the youth.

Being small in size, this breed is able to squeeze themselves into narrow places and detect narcotics, unlike the larger ones. They can detect bombs and mines as proved by their service in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war

They are known to be feisty and fearless and are generally bred for fox hunting in the UK.

The dog squad of KP was started in 1959 and at present has 27 units. There are 168 dogs in the squad belonging to 10 different breeds and include foreign ones like Belgian Malinois and Labrador Retriever and the Indian species like Kanni and Chippipara.