Fingers on the pulse of the rainbow.

Telling you what to do seems to be the new way in managing the resources at your disposal. It is good to make a decision and stick by it. This is deemed good management.

For the minnions itis not good to challenge stuff. This, it appears, is food of the gods but not the rest.  The rest cannot be trusted and are expected to play by the rules set by those who claim to know better, presumably because they are the ones with fingers on the pulse of the big picture.

So you eventually get onto the chosen specialisation of your choice and you believe that you might be trusted to get on with things. After all, you have proven yourself to your previous supervisors, your district management, passed the relevant selection and finally nailed your post after a long time trying. Becoming a dog handler doesn’t happen very often because there are not many places that come along. Historically people have had to wait a long time. Almost like a tradition really.

You should be trusted to be able to make yourself available for what you are there to do. Support the response shift with general purpose dog support. For those with that little bit extra, they can offer additional scope with drugs or explo support.

You would have thought so, this is normally the case.

Not so in the realms of the CTC Constabulary, where the senior managers have a plan. Everything must be focused towards the plan. The big plan where only those at the top see the bigger picture and can make the correct decisions. They see through a whole spectrum of colours and everything appears pinpoint clear to them, whilst the minions are credited with a far lower range of colour recognition and need the constant guidance of the managerial excellence in place.

I find this a little bit insulting. I have coped pretty well for a score and a few years and been able to more than justify my existence through the myriad of statistical dross I have to submit. I have been told that I should be lucky I have done this as it has saved my ass on more than a few occasions. I have yet to find out from what.

I book on, I load up my beast, sort my kit, check I have enough fuel for the possible journeys ahead and hit the streets covered by the CTCC. Like almost every other dog handler, my trusty flask and grub bag accompany me as I have learned to my cost and my hunger the feelings that affect you when these valuable items are left back at base. You see, we often take our grub, if we get a chance to have any, on the hoof or at one of the stations out on the ground.

Like others, I always take out a spare battery for the radio. I always book on with the big controller who covers the ‘big’ air as well as the small controller who covers the ‘little’ air of the district waveband.  I also pop into the local station, speak to the local supervisors as well as some of the regulars on shift. I have built up a very good local knowledge and actually listen to the radio. I have even got update intimate with the intel and crime statistics analyst to give me the current and up to date knowledge I feel I need. I do not need to wait days or weeks for the other intel machinery to asses, evaluate and disseminate their own brand of belated and often out of date bedtime stories.  Contrary to any other stories that may perambulate around the halls of the mighty, I most definitely do not kip at night.

When I get word that shift changes are likely to be afoot, it pisses me off.

When I hear that things will change, because change is good, this also pisses me off.

When I am not trusted to work out where my (perceived) non-committed time is best needed and I am told when and where I will patrol it pisses me off is a very big way.

When I learn that the rainbow squad has decided to take me out of sync with the very people I am there to offer my particular kind of specialist support to, It causes me great annoyance and displeasure. This is not a recipe in either theirs or my interest.

I book on, I answer as well as monitor the radio and like most other dog handlers, I form one of the highest responding response groups to emergency or high grade calls within the CTCC.

I work with animals. That is some of the problem. There is a problem with the all seeing perception within the big picture.

These animals are not like a gun, a car or a radio. You cannot use them and then put them back in the box, locker or garage after use with minimum checks of fuel oil and water or after cleaning.

These animals require continual work, constant consideration and care. That is what ACPO recommend anyway. These animals have moods, some of them a bit odd I will admit, but they do. The dogs that is,  not ACPO. Although I feel sure that they too, ACPO this time, have moods as well.

The rainbow squad seem unaware of this when the plans are made for that really big push towards the creation and implementation of the next really big and important plan. It seems that we are all one big happy family. We have the same goals, the same mission and the same objectives.  

I can somehow feel a review or reorganisation in my water. This will surely be seen to move things forward and be damn good career developing evidence at the same time, no doubt.

That’s the trouble when dogs don’t fit into the really big plan anymore.  Districts ?  Who are they anyway ?

I thought they were our biggest customers, but it appears that I have been looking through the wrong glasses and need to get my eyes tested.

I will wake up and this will have been some form of weird and wonderful dream that I will never be able to explain.