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Pupils of Victoria Park Community Junior School have adopted two of the youngest and newest recruits to the Dog Section.

The recruits, two 11 weeks-old Belgian Malinois puppies, will visit the school on Tuesday April 1 and get to meet their new ‘owners’.

Over the last few weeks the school held a competition to name the police pups and it was decided to christen them Harry and Hermione.

Nine year old Lauren Bickley won the competition and her prize will be to spend an afternoon with the puppies at the dog section in Bower Ashton.

Headteacher Alan Reece said: “The children have really enjoyed thinking of names and the winning ones were inspired by the Harry Potter movie. Let’s just hope they don’t live up to their names!”

The puppies, who are brother and sister, joined the dog section at just seven weeks old.

Sergeant Denis McCoy, who is responsible for their development, said: “This is the first time our force has had this type of breed as puppies and it’s great that the children get to see them grow and develop.

This breed of dog is very smart and obedient and the puppies will be trained to become fully operational police dogs, performing duties such as locating vulnerable missing persons, searching and detaining offenders of crime, and crowd control.

Everything we do with the puppies is structured to achieving the goal of becoming fully trained police dogs. We do this by making all the activities fun and enjoyable for the dogs so that in 18 months time both puppies will be taking a bite out of crime!"

Pupils will track the puppies' development until they become operational dogs in 18 months time via the dog blog which launches on Thursday April 3. The first entry has been written by PC Guy Williams who is Harry’s handler.

PC Williams said: "Unlike pet dogs, police dogs are chosen to be as confident and energetic as possible. The dogs have to have the desire to chase, bite, be confident enough to go anywhere and defend themselves and their handlers against one person or even a crowd.

"This takes a special kind of dog and a lot of training will go into making the puppies confident enough to do the job and training them in the correct skills."

View a video of the puppies' visit to the school: