North Yorkshire Police turn to Twitter to name canine recruit (From Darlington and Stockton Times)
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Police turn to Twitter to name canine recruit
5:27pm Friday 1st March 2013 in News
By Emily Flanagan, Reporter
POLICE dog handlers have named their latest recruit – a trainee search dog – after turning to Twitter for inspiration.
The North Yorkshire Police dog section put out an appeal on Twitter for people to come up with a name for their new canine recruit.
Rachel Baxter’s suggestion of Jake received the most votes in an online poll last month. She was pregnant with her daughter Daisy at the time and Jake was one of the names she had decided upon for a boy.
The mother and her 15-week-old daughter met Jake, a cocker spaniel, for the first time last week at Tadcaster Police Station, near her home, along with ten-week-old police dogs, Patto and veteran police dog Rambo.
She said: “I love dogs, but unfortunately can’t have any at home. I’m an avid tweeter and follow lots of specialist dog teams on Twitter, but have a special interest in the work of police dogs.”
Rambo’s handler, PC Scott Nixon, set up the dog section’s Twitter account, @NYPDogSection, in November last year and already has more than 2,000 followers.
He said: “Our police dogs are hugely popular and people are genuinely interested in what they do and how they help keep our communities safe.
"They are a great link and ice-breaker with members of the public and our Twitter feed gives us a quick and simple channel for two-way engagement. It seemed fitting that when we wanted a name for our latest recruit, we would ask our followers.”
Other suggestions included Fenton and Elvis.
