PHILIPSBURG--Two local police officers of the K9-unit, along with their new sniffer dogs, were awarded certificates by the Justice Training Centre on Aruba, from where they graduated on Friday afternoon.
Igmar Woodley with his dog Rasja and Rechek Moeslikan with his dog Astori were trained in Aruba by certified dog trainer Dick van Leenen. After finishing their course, which entailed a theoretical and a practical part, the pairs are ready to combat trafficking in illicit substances and firearms. The dogs and their handlers will return to St. Maarten this week, and will be start their duty soon after their arrival.
Minister of Justice of Aruba Arthur Dowers, with chief of police of St. Maarten Police Force Peter de Witte, presented the certificates to the two St. Maarten police officers and their dogs.
The officers and their dogs were preceded last week by another police handler and his patrol dog, a replacement for one of the two patrol dogs already in St. Maarten, which retired from police service recently.
The minister recounted that the dog training programme started several years ago when, along with Peter de Witte, who was then Police Chief Commissioner of Aruba, he visited the Police Academy in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, where police officers are trained.
He described it as being a “very cold day with a lot of rain” when they met dog trainer Dick van Leenen, who was certifying several dogs to be used as patrol dogs.
Both De Witte and the minister were very impressed with the way Van Leenen prepared the dogs and their handlers, and they approached him to train the dogs on the island.
After De Witte became the Police Chief on St. Maarten, the cooperation between the two countries started. That cooperation is now at a level where the same training standards apply in both countries, and both countries now have trained certification officers, who will certify the dog-handler teams in the other country.
De Witte emphasised that the success of police dogs relies very much on the dynamics between the dog and their handler. The dog has to learn to obey specific commands, and to sniff out specific items and substances, but the handler has to learn how to give the command and how to interpret the dog’s reaction.
The Minister of Justice of Aruba, at the end of the graduation ceremony, congratulated the officers, De Witte and St. Maarten’s Justice Minister Dennis Richardson on the milestone.