AgenPress. Since last May, the Guardia di Finanza of Grosseto has been able to count on a new member named Linux, a young German shepherd specialized in the search for narcotic substances.
The four-legged yellow flame is in its first operational use and arrives in Maremma after having been trained at the Corps’ “Dog Breeding and Training Course” and having brilliantly passed all the tests necessary for placing it into service.
Linux, with a confident and lively temperament, will work alongside Dankan, a historic drug dog in the Grosseto Group who over the years has distinguished himself throughout the Province for having sniffed out large quantities of drugs.
The arrival of the German shepherd testifies to the commitment made by the Provincial Command in increasing activities to combat the detention and dealing of narcotic substances, operations which, in order to be completed with ever greater incisiveness and capillarity, cannot ignore the use of dog units.
The dog unit is the duo made up of the dog and its handler. An indissoluble bond that is born during the quadruped’s training period and that lasts a lifetime. For the dog, training activity does not constitute work or constraint but always and in any case a game, an outlet for its natural instincts. The instructor leverages the animal’s predatory nature and accustoms it to hunting a sponge muff to obtain a reward. That sponge, as the training progresses, will be impregnated with odors, first those of soft drugs, very strong and persistent, then the more difficult to recognize ones of cocaine and heroin. The dogs never come into direct contact with the narcotic substances, but simply report their presence to the handler, who, after having rewarded them with the coveted sleeve, will carry out the ritual operations.
Linux and Dankan are ready to face a summer season that promises to be particularly challenging, during which, due to the increase in tourist flows, they will be employed in numerous service activities to protect the economic-financial security of the territory and the health of citizens , especially the younger ones.
