Police Dog Kingston’s retirement party, South Australia

Today for International Dog Day, we celebrated the retirement of PD Kingston by throwing him a surprise party!

Today for International Dog Day, we celebrated the retirement of PD Kingston by throwing him a surprise party!

PD Kingston is hanging up his collar after 8 years of working as an Firearm and Explosive detection dog for South Australia Police Dog Operations Unit.

In 2012, Kingston joined SAPOL after failing terribly as a Guide Dog. His skills were better suited to detecting firearms and explosives and he was hailed as one of the most successful detection dogs in SAPOL, and loved every minute of it. Kingston worked with two different handlers in his time and both had only the highest praise for him.

“I have trained three police dogs and Kingston was the best I have trained” – Senior Constable Dan Lacey, PD Kingston’s first handler said.

“He saved my life when he located a live pipe bomb in a cupboard, which had he not indicated, may have resulted in someone triggering it”.

In 2018, PD Kingston was deployed with the Bomb Response Unit on a task when he indicated on a cupboard. A subsequent search of the cupboard by Bomb Technicians revealed a highly volatile chemical explosive that if disturbed, could have resulted in serious injury or death to the police officers present.

Commenting on his retirement, Senior Sergeant Kurt Newcombe, Officer in Charge of the Dog Operations Unit said “Under normal circumstances, PD Kingston would have been retired a year or so ago but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it! PD Kingston still demonstrated such a passion and excitement about coming to work, he demonstrated consistent high performance and is just such a great dog to be around, we just had to let him hang around a little longer.”

During his career, Kingston has completed 682 searches which have resulted in the location of 6 explosive devices, 34 firearms, 2396 live ammunition and 361 spent ammunition. Within that, 57 offenders were charged.

PD Kingston, while being a workaholic was also a foodie. On one occasion whilst undertaking a firearm search inside a vehicle, he ending up helping himself to hidden Subway sandwich.

PD Kingston has retired to the care of Senior Constable Lacey and his family, and they are very happy to be in each other’s company once again.

/Public Release. View in full here.