INTRODUCING RIVET, INVERCARGILL’S FIRST OFFICIAL NARCOTIC DETECTION DOG

Southland’s police force has another crime fighter to detect drugs, with the first narcotic detection dog joining the team full time.

Officer in charge of the Southland police dog section Senior Sergeant Wally Kopae​ has employed Rivet as Invercargill’s own drug dog resource.

“Rivet’s the first drug dog in Southland in a recognised position,” he said.

The region had utilised a narcotic detection dog about 10 years ago between the dog’s allocations – but with the ongoing drug problem in New Zealand, Kopae saw a need in Southland for a resource of its own.

Kopae said this was because of the high substance traffic being shipped between islands, and often from New Zealand to Australia.

“That’s where the gangs around the world, that’s where they come through. They come through all these smaller countries.”

Kopae also has plans to train dog squads for Fiji and other Pacific nations, though Covid-19 has extended the time frame for these plans into later next year.

Although Southland police had access to drug dogs through New Zealand customs, these dogs were used to working in shipping containers and postage environments, which was very different to gang pads and the rough environments police dogs were sent to, he said.

To fill this need, Kopae was hoping that nationally the police force could double the numbers of narcotic detection dogs in the near future.

“That’s the hope – within the next year we’ll have twice as many police drug dogs as we’ve got.”

In addition to the general-purpose police dog squad, Rivet will specialise in searching for illegal substances and suspicious materials, such as cash and firearm powders/oils.

“He’s trained up in, like I say, all the drugs of interest that you could think of. I think there’s 23 or 24 different odours that he can identify, and we’ve got more coming online all the time.”

Rivet will be working on an on-call basis, including two training days a week.

It was difficult to plan the week, because it was a “we need you here tomorrow” situation.

“…warrants are all organised by CIB [Criminal Investigation Branch] generally, and they’re all pretty secretive, so they don’t tell you anything till, you know, five minutes before they want you.”