Crooks feared bobby’s best friend

He used to be equipped with just a torch, whistle, truncheon and tape measure.

But Alan Howson remembers the day when his job as a police officer changed forever.

“I was the first police dog handler for West Bromwich and I loved the job,” says Alan, aged 75, from Great Barr.

“I joined the Staffordshire Police Force in 1953, straight after coming out of the army.

“I was based in West Bromwich and did all my service there. It wasn’t until 1958 that I got Tosca the police dog. Until then, I had just been a street bobby but I grew up with German Shepherds. When I left the Army, I had a German Shepherd bitch, which I started training in my own time.”

Alan says that when the chief inspector saw him training his own dog he recommended him to become a police dog handler.

“At that time you could only go for that job if you had been recommended and had proved yourself as a good police officer. I loved dogs, and I loved being a police officer, so I thought I would combine the two,” he says. Alan went to Stafford for 13 weeks to train Tosca under assistance at Baswich House. “Tosca learned obedience, agility and how to search for property and humans – in those days we had no need for drug or firearm dogs,” says Alan.

“I remember when I first saw Tosca because he wasn’t the biggest dog in the kennel but I could see that there was something about him. There were a group of police officers training dogs and so as soon as we got to Baswich House we had to go and stand next to our chosen dog. It was a gut instinct at the time, but I’m so glad I got Tosca because he became a bit of a legend.

“He could pull a man down to the ground in minutes. In those days I walked the streets and if I was needed in the night they would send a police car for me.”

Alan says he was regularly called out to Pawsons, a department store in West Bromwich. “The shop’s alarm would go off and I used to just stand at the door, send Tosca in and you could hear him going up the stairs to the first floor. Suddenly he would start barking and so you knew he had found someone.”

Alan says that over a period of five years, every division had a police dog. “I went to the Dudley riots with Tosca,” says Alan.

“In those days we used the police dog properly, which they are not able to do today, and so people would get bitten if they needed to be. But my police dogs all had a great temperament and were wonderful around children. Myself and my wife Mary have had two children, Tony and Karen, and eight grand-children and they have all been brought up with police dogs in the house. Tosca retired when he was eight-years-old and lived with us in Great Barr until he was 14. Then I got another dog, Rusty, followed by Shep and then Champ, but they all have to retire when they are around eight-years-old because they can’t jump over fences and chase after criminals as quickly.

“I was a dog handler for 23 years, and I loved every minute of it. For the last three years of my service, I was in public liaison because by then it was me that got too old to be jumping over fences!”

By Cathy Spencer.