By Cameron Blackshaw via SWNS
A police force could be the first in the world to use dogs to identify date rape drugs.
Thames Valley Police is training a group of animals to sniff out substances such as Rohypnol, GHB and GBL.
They are used by people who carry out spiking in order to rape or sexually assault someone.
It would allow officers to deploy the dogs at the entrances to music festivals and nightclubs to identify harmful substances and those who intend to use them.
TVP chief constable Jason Hogg said: “We think we’re the first police force in the world to train our dogs to identify date rape drugs used for spiking.
“The idea there is that outside nightclubs or at festivals, we can put those passive dogs where people are coming in to identify the drugs.
“We are just finishing the trial of that and it is going really well.”
TVP had increased the deployment of their police dog section by 10 percent over the last year, and Hogg said that was due to the animals being trained to identify more and more objects every single year.
He said: “We have quite a large dog section here and we have a very effective dog breeding program as well.
“We are using our dogs to do more and more things, whether that be finding cash, looking for explosives.
“We are being more proactive in how we can use our dogs who are amazing animals and are very happy dogs who love to come and work here with us.”
