Before most of the tricity is awake, the day begins for the 100-odd dogs at the Punjab Home Guards Canine Training and Breeding Institute, tucked away amid fields, forest tracks and open ground in Dera Bassi, around 40 km from Chandigarh.
“We do not train them on pseudo items. We use real substances and materials so that the dogs can identify them during actual operations.”
“In the beginning, we trained 48 dogs, and all of them are now deployed in different departments,” said Simrat Pal Sidhu, alias Newton Sidhu, who spearheaded the initiative.
A report by a Union home ministry-appointed committee had highlighted a shortage of trained canines in India, prompting Sidhu to approach the then Punjab government for a joint venture, particularly to meet the state’s requirement for narcotics-detection dogs. The institute, a government undertaking under Punjab’s department of home affairs and justice, now trains dogs for state and paramilitary forces. Twelve are deployed with the Haryana prison department, while one is part of the security arrangements for the Dalai Lama. The institute supplies dogs to paramilitary and state police forces, the Union ministry of external affairs, excise and taxation departments, and prison departments.
The idea took shape in 2015 after Sidhu, who had worked in cybersecurity since 1999 and with various government departments, met Mike Morgan, a US-based canine trainer with 28 years of experience training dogs for the American forces. Its 43-acre campus can accommodate 104 dogs, with 48 kennels for those under training and five for pups, besides medical rooms and quarantine facilities. The institute says it has supplied 168 trained dogs to government departments, including for the chief minister’s security. In Ludhiana, Belgian Malinois Urus, five, Golden Labrador Tommy, six, and Labrador Jolly, four, were part of an excise operation that led to the detection of around 3.30 lakh litres of lahan, according to the institute. In Barwala in Haryana, Urus and Tommy, along with German Shepherd Shruti, three, and Belgian Malinois Lio, four, helped detect around 30,000 litres of liquor stored in tanks.
