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Jay's Blog
The Thin Blue Paw
November 2019

Hello all,
I am now 14 months old. I am concentrating on my training as my General Purpose Police Dog initial course starts at the beginning of January 2020. Since my last blog I have been busy doing lots of environmental training, getting prepared for my initial course and have been on holiday.

I have had another ‘mini’ assessment, along with the other dogs that will be with me on the January course. The canine development officer is honing the basics of what we have already learned. I was pretty chuffed with myself as I performed well on all of the tasks we were set. An operational dog handler is on the course with TPD Dino. Between tasks he said to Stew he could put me in the back of his air conditioned dog unit car. Afterwards Stew said to him, ‘You’re not taking my dog back to Cornwall are you?’. He replied, ‘In a breath mate’. The canine development officer said we were ‘excellent’ – which is good enough for me.


Here we are after our training session; left to right – My brother TPD Arnie, myself, TPD Rebel and TPD Dino. What a view!

I mentioned in my last blog that Alison and Stew were going away for a week’s holiday. I went to stay with the canine development officer and his GSD Ella. Ella and I had great fun together; I might even go as far to say we had a holiday romance! I think she was upset when I had to go back to Alison and Stew – especially when I didn’t text or phone her afterwards!!


Here I am holding paws with Ella.

I also joined in some of the training days with the September initial course.

Alison and Stew had an invite to a big event at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. The event was the Ride To The Wall (RTTW). Thousands of motor bikers attend from all over the UK and Europe. RTTW is to remember the service men and women who have died since the Second World War. Stew had a special pass allowing him and I to park near the monument. I wore a special Police Dog harness for the first time, I really felt the part. Of course, my namesake Jamie was part of the service. Stew thought it would be an ideal environmental training session for me. I climbed the stairs to the Memorial Wall with Alison, Stew and Jamie’s older brother Rory to lay a wreath for Jamie. I was very proud to have been there.

I met Lee Rigby and Liam Tasker’s mothers. Liam was an Army dog handler, unfortunately he was killed in Afghanistan, shortly afterwards his dog Theo died of a heart attack. Theo was awarded the Dicken Medal – a Victoria Cross for dogs. I had lots of attention. And, of course made lots of new friends, young and old.


The RTTW was attended by over 7000 motorbikes and over 20000 spectators. I mingled with the spectators, and when walking back to the car park after the service hundreds of motorbikes went past me. This didn’t unsettle me, the only thing that did was the crowd clapping, when in the down stay position I jumped up and looked round – ‘what’s going on!’. Stew said I was absolutely outstanding throughout the event.

I have to go now. Unfortunately this will be my penultimate blog before I embark on my initial course.

Alison and Stew are dreading the day I have to go.
I thought perhaps for my next blog I could do a catch up on what I have been up to and questions and answers.


I have been doing some undercover work!

Until next time – bye for now,
Jay