Contingents of police have been mobilised to search for one of their dogs stolen from its kennel at the Tigania police station, Meru County.
The female dog nicknamed Jet and aged seven years was found missing Tuesday, February 6 at about midday by its guide.
When he found it missing, the guide had gone to check on the animal for feeding sessions.
Police said it was of Belgian Malinois breed and had a brown tan in colour.
Each can fetch up to Sh500,000 depending on the age, officials said.
Officials said the loss was huge to the service and all resources had been mobilised to look for the animal.
“We attach much love to police dogs. She is like a police officer hence the mobilization to get her,” an officer aware of the search said.
The police believe the animal was picked up by someone who knew about its movements.
Police dogs are usually handled with care as they are highly trained and their rearing takes a long time and is expensive, officials say.
The police department has a full-fledged dog unit based at Langata dubbed Langata K-9, which was established to support in care and maintenance of the dogs, procure and breed, train the animals and handlers and deploy them for crime detection and prevention.
The unit has about 5,000 dogs deployed in counties and at key institutions like airports, water reservoirs, Parliament and the Kenyatta International Convention Centre. Some are attached to VIPs, especially the president.
If these dogs are killed in the line of duty, they receive the same honours as their human partners.
The canine law enforcers patrol streets, sniff out explosives and narcotics and chase or help arrest fleeing crime suspects.
The department usually sells the animals to prospective buyers.
The animals include Rottweilers, English Spaniels, Boerboel, Labradors, Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds
The Kenya Police Dog Unit, which opened its doors in 1948 in Nanyuki, uses different dogs for patrol, tracking firearms and drugs and explosives detection.
The German Shepherds were first introduced in Kenya in the 1950s and are mostly guard dogs used for crowd control, protection services as well as tracking.
Rottweilers were introduced in Kenya in 2004.
The dogs are trained in patrol and tracking skills, narcotics and explosives detection.
Training starts when the dogs are about five months old. They are then deployed after three months if they meet performance standards.
The unit has a training centre with three faculties, which include explosives, narcotics and protection.
At the unit, there are 500 dog handlers, who teach the animals to obey commands and perform specific tasks.
These can range from simple obedience training to more advanced instructions and complex tactics.
The dogs are retired if they become injured to an extent where they will not recover completely or before they get to a state of being unable to perform.
The canines are also euthanised because the inactive ones can neither fit in the police unit or in society.
The dogs are normally put down by intravenous injection containing a high dose of pentobarbital or sodium thiopental.
The few that escape death are either donated to the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals or the University of Nairobi’s College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences.