By Xiuhao Chen and Joe Cash
BEIJING, Dec 19 (Reuters) - China's national security authorities are urging police across the country to favour the use of a home-grown dog breed over German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Malinois and Springer Spaniels, as Beijing relentlessly pursues self-reliance.
The Ministry of Public Security on Thursday urged police to help "promote the development goal of 'international first-class' police dog technology," in a statement touting the Kunming dog, a wolf-dog hybrid bred
in southern China for decades from Alsatians and local dogs.
"Unleashing the police potential of Kunming dogs... is an important step in China's independent control of police dog breed resources and brand construction," the statement added.
The Kunming dog is not indigenous to China, but the result of decades of artificial breeding. The ministry in the 1950s opened a specialist canine breeding centre in the southwestern province of Yunnan, and is working on three further indigenous dogs.
"What gives the Kunming dog its edge is that its genetic composition is relatively diverse," said Wang Guodong, a Kunming-based zoological researcher featured in a video accompanying the ministry's statement.
The local canine is more versatile than foreign breeds, Wang said, adding that Chinese law enforcement agencies had found that foreign dogs "may excel in one particular assignment, but also feature obvious weaknesses."
The Kunming dog is "China's first and currently only police dog with fully independent intellectual property rights," the statement said, adding that it was of high technological and innovation value.
The breed outperforms its foreign peers in tasks such as sniffing out narcotics and explosives, as well as tracking and apprehending suspects, a handler featured in the video said.
Some Chinese police dogs were trained in German, a separate state media report said, in the belief they would respond better to that language.
"As global competition in police dog technology becomes increasingly fierce, having a stable supply of high-quality working dog breeds adapted to local environments is key," the ministry statement said.
(Reporting by Xiuhao Chen and Joe Cash; Editing by Jamie Freed)
