As SARworld reported last week the 50th Anniversary National Police Dog Trials were hosted by Lincolnshire Police last weekend.

The three day competition put some the country's highly skilled and experienced police dog handlers and dogs through their paces in exercises which tested a wide range of abilities such as tracking, searching, stand off, weapon attack, obedience and crowd control. Each of the 23 competitors undertook the various exercises in locations throughout the county. This culminated in the final day, held on Sunday 9th May at Lincolnshire Police Headquarters, in conjunction with the Force Open Day.

The day provided an excellent opportunity for the dogs and their handlers to demonstrate their skills to the public, and the event proved to be an extremely popular attraction to the estimated 8,000 strong crowds who attended the Police Open Day. Adults and children were impressed and enthralled by the exercises during which dogs obeyed the handler's commands, scaled obstacles, chased and detained an attacker, and chased and stood off a criminal.

At the end of the day, the scores were tallied and the winners of the categories were announced. The overall National Police Dog Trials Winner for 2010 is Sergeant Simon Young of Central Scotland Police and his dog Ralph. His performance was not hampered by the fact that his wife was imminently due to give birth to their second child in Scotland. So close was this event that he had to dash back to Scotland on the Saturday of the competition, only to have to make the five hour trip back to Lincolnshire for the Sunday. Despite this, Sergeant Young put in an impressive overall performance, achieving a total score of 807 out of 1000. This year's competition was extremely closely contested, as shown by the fact that there were with only 30 points separating the first and the fifth placed competitors.

Lincolnshire was not without its own local success, with P.C. Bob Newham winning two awards for the highest score in Phase 3, and overall fourth place in the competition. P.C. Newham says, "I'm delighted to have won these awards, and am pleased and proud of Razor's performance". "I'd like to thank the home crowd for their warm support on the final day, which made it a particular memorable event and special win." "Razor is going from strength to strength in his skills and abilities". "I'm certain he has a successful career as a police dog ahead of him and look forward to the chance to compete with him again in future competitions".

Lincolnshire's Chief Constable, Richard Crompton says, "It was a pleasure and a privilege for the force to host this event and I'm hugely impressed by the standard demonstrated by all the competitors, all of whom were already winners in their own right by qualifying for the Trials". "I'm particularly pleased that the Final Day was so well attended by the public and that it proved to be such an enjoyable family occasion". "We are very proud of the work that that police dogs and handlers do, and events like this are a chance for us to showcase our high standards and boost public confidence in the police service". "Congratulations to all the competitors and organisers for a highly successful event".

50th National Police Dog Trials 2010 - Winners

• First - Sergeant Simon Young - Police Dog Ralph - Central Scotland Police
• Second - Sergeant Paul Glennon - Police Dog Spud - Devon and Cornwall Police
• Third - P.C. Stephen Ritchie - Police Dog Amstel - Tayside Police
• Fourth - P.C. Bob Newham - Police Dog Razor - Lincolnshire Police