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Danish sniffer dog stolen twice in one week

A police bomb detection dog by the name of Pablo has been stolen from his home in Aarhus for the second time in four days.

Danish sniffer dog stolen twice in one week
Not a photo of Pablo, but a fellow Malinois. Photo: Iris/Scanpix

Highly-trained police detection and sniffer dog Pablo has again been stolen from his home in Aarhus.

Pablo’s owner Michael Johansen went to let the dog out of its kennel Thursday to find the fence cut open and the dog missing, reports TV2 Østjylland.

“This time they have cut a hole in the fence, in the lowest part of the door. It was cut open with pliers,” Johansen said.

Active police dogs like Pablo are best suited to kennels when they are off-duty as the nature of their training means that they are unable to relax indoors, Johansen explained.

The dog, which was originally stolen Monday night, was found by police the following day after a Facebook post by the Danish Air Force (Flyvevåbnet) was shared 15,000 times.

East Jutland police confirmed to TV2 Østjylland Thursday morning that the dog had been stolen for a second time.

“It’s really sad for him with everything he’s been through,” Johansen said.

A new appeal has now been posted on the Air Force’s Facebook page after the new disappearance.


Pablo is being trained as a tracking and drug detection dog at the Air Force Training Centre at Karup in central Jutland.

Together with Johansen, Pablo is scheduled to travel soon to Afghanistan, where the pair will look for narcotics in the luggage of Nato soldiers at Kabul’s international airport.

READ ALSO: Pet dog finds class A drugs on Danish beach

The four-year-old sniffer dog, which resembles a German Shepherd, is actually of the smaller Malinois breed and has a characteristic swinging walking style due to its training, Johansen told TV2 Østjylland. 

POLICE

Denmark says 450 extra police officers will strengthen response to rape, assault and break-ins

Victims of violence and rape in Denmark are Monday today guaranteed police offers will be dispatched to assist if they need acute help.

A file photo of a police motorcycle. A new Danish police guarantee requires officers to be dispatched to attend all reports of assault and rape as well as locations of break-ins.
A file photo of a police motorcycle. A new Danish police guarantee requires officers to be dispatched to attend all reports of assault and rape as well as locations of break-ins. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

Police are also now required to attend addresses within 24 hours after reports of a break-in.

The new standards are included in a new “police guarantee” confirmed by the Ministry of Justice in a statement. The guarantee was included in the police funding bill voted through by parliament in December 2020.

Justice minister Nick Hækkerup said that police can meet that guarantee, pointing to the provision in the police bill to add 450 officers to Denmark’s police forces during the course of 2021, 2022 and 2023.

But the trade union for the police, Politiforbundet, says that the total police force must be increased by 5,000 officers if the guarantee is to be lived up to.

“I am completely confident in relation to the extra resources which will be added to the police in coming years being enough to fulfil the guarantee,” Hækkerup said.

“I want to see their calculations,” the minister said in relation to the police union’s number.

“That is equivalent to us needing to increase our police staffing by 50 percent to be able to meet the guarantee we have set,” he added.

The police union has also criticised the guarantee because they see it could result in other tasks being delayed.

“Then there wouldn’t be enough resources for tasks like domestic incidents, traffic accidents and mentally ill member of the public,” the union’s leader Heino Kegel said.

Hækkerup rejected the suggestion resources would be pulled away from other areas.

“It’s not as if this is a completely new task. It’s a task we already undertake,” he said.

READ ALSO: Copenhagen police to ban people with criminal records from nightlife areas

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