Thirteen of Merseyside Polices top police dogs have featured in a charity calendar to help raise money for young people.
The stars of the calendar range from sniffer dogs to general purpose policing dogs and all play a part in helping to keep our communities safe.
General Purpose police dogs are trained to work under a variety of conditions and are capable of searching for and finding drugs, firearms, banknotes and explosive substances.
The dogs: Yogi, Alfie, Capone, Billy, Victor, Red, Gus, Flo, Annie, Oz, Sammy, Butch and Stan range from 21 months to nine years old.
All proceeds from the sales of the calendar will go towards Million Makers, which is an entrepreneurial challenge set up by The Prince’s Trust that sees teams of employees competing to raise money to change the lives of young people across the UK.
Merseyside Police is one of the many organisations across the UK who have been challenged to raise £10,000 for the charity within six months.
Rachel Pounder, who is from Merseyside Police’s Training Academy and is responsible for organising the calendar, said: “We produced the police dog calendar for the first time last year and it was so popular we thought we would do it again this year.
“Our police dogs play an important role in keeping our communities safe and in helping to track and arrest offenders.
“It’s nice to be able to recognise the hard work that the dogs and their handlers do and to help raise money for a worthy cause at the same time.”
Calendars cost £7.50 each and can be ordered by emailing your name and address to policedogcalendar@merseyside.police.uk – a link will then be sent out to the Just Giving page with a unique reference number.
Hannah Peck, Employee Fundraising Executive from The Prince’s Trust said: “We’d like to say a huge thank you to Rachel and everyone in the Million Maker’s team at Merseyside Police’s Training Academy for everything they’re doing to fundraise for The Trust.
“The money raised through sales of this calendar will help us to be there for young people in Merseyside and beyond through these difficult times, supporting them to build their confidence and skills so that they can move into work, training and education.
“Many thanks too to Yogi, Gus, Flo and the rest of the gang for putting their best paw forward for the photoshoot!”