Grade: Volunteer

Salary: Volunteer

Closing Date:  13th August 2019

About the role:

What do our brood bitches do?

Our ‘brood bitches’ are breeding females who we use to produce the police dogs of the future. We have around 50 brood bitches who live with families on a full time basis and they are mated in order to breed the puppies, who then become part of our Puppy Development Programme.

Our Puppy Development Programme is registered under the Kennel Club Assured Breeder Scheme, which is designed to promote good breeding practices & help prospective purchasers to identify those breeders who breed responsibly.

Our brood bitches normally retire when they are around 8 years old.

The brood bitches

We have a large variety of different breeds working as operational police dogs. The Puppy Development Programme is no different and we have a mix of different breeds of brood bitches within it.

We don't exclusively look for one particular breed, as we are most interested & focused on the health & working characteristics of our dogs.

The type of dogs we select to become our brood bitches are not pet dogs. They have been extensively tested to have the core ability to become an operational police dog. As such, they are extremely energetic, strong, intelligent and very demanding.

For this reason, it is a requirement that our Brood Bitch Holders must provide an active home for our Brood Bitches. This could include for example taking part in schutzhund, working trials or tracking exercises, amongst others. The dogs may also be selected to become a member of our Section Display Team, if you take part in any of these activities to a particularly high standard with your dog.

What does a brood bitch holder do?

The main role of a brood bitch holder is to provide the overall care & welfare for our brood bitches. You will provide a full time active home and our dog will live with you. You must keep in regular contact with us about her season dates, general health & overall well being. This is extremely important, as it allows us to plan our future matings & breeding.

The dog can be matched with you from around 6-8 weeks old and will remain in your care until she retires. If you are allocated a potential brood bitch, you will be expected to follow the same Puppy Development Programme as our volunteer puppy fosterers. At the end of the programme, the dog will be extensively character tested and will also undergo a series of health tests & screening.

Providing the dog passes all tests, you will have the option of keeping her as a brood bitch in a full-time capacity. Should the dog fail any of the tests, they will be rehomed to a suitable home.

If having a young puppy does not appeal to you, we also have the option of giving a full time home to brood bitches who have already come through the programme and passed all of the necessary tests. These dogs are around 12-14 months old & already have a basic level of training.

Although a volunteer role, becoming a brood bitch holder is hugely time consuming and impacts on the whole family. This is a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year experience, although of course you are allowed to have breaks & holidays. It is a hugely challenging but extremely rewarding role.

Your Support

As previously mentioned, being a brood bitch holder is a time consuming role and requires a huge amount of dedication. Under our close supervision and guidance however, you’ll receive the highest levels of support & guidance to help make developing our future police dogs a fun experience.

When taking on a Brood Bitch, all basic costs are taken care of by us. All of the following are provided to you:

The only cost to you is your time.

• You will need to have experience or a very keen interest in training dogs
• You and your family will need to be able to live with a large, strong & energetic dog.
• You will need to have unrestricted, personal access to a suitable vehicle for safe transportation of the dog.
• You will need to have suitable home environment to allow a large dog crate to be housed. 
• You will need to provide a fully fenced (minimum of 6 foot fences) & a secure garden area for the dog.
• You will need to be able to attend regular training sessions - which are held during the day - with your dog.
• You will need to have plenty of spare time to keep your dog mentally & physically exercised.
• You will need to ensure that the dog is not left for more than 3-4 hours at any time, other than overnight.

More information about the requirements can be found at - https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/specialist-teams/our-dogs/puppy-fostering