Talks, experiences, and events are something that University Centre Peterborough (UCP) likes to offer its students as part of their courses. Students are likely to find this more enjoyable than watching a presentation, but it also offers an interactive learning environment or an insight into a career path that they might not have thought of before.
Lecturer Rosemary Saunders is a retired detective, and like other lecturers, has connections in their industry. Many courses are able to offer these kinds of events, one of the most recent being a member of the Dog Handler Unit talking to students about her role. Reporter, Jessica Muggeridge went along to report on this exciting event, speaking to both Rosemary and the Dog Handler unit.
Rosemary spoke about the importance of the university providing sessions like this for their students in addition to their normal lessons.
She said, “We give you a certain amount of knowledge on the courses, an overview as it were, but for me, there’s nothing quite so important as actual experience doing it. Because I’m a retired detective I can offer my side of a number of policing experiences, but I’ve never been a Dog Handler. So, for me it’s important for students to see the reality of what I teach them in this particular module.”
Rosemary went on to talk about if the University provides enough of these events, saying, “I think it depends on the courses, because of my career background and my experience. Although I have been retired a little while, I still have a lot of contacts. It's nice for me to be able to use people that I know to come in and give that experience, and I think the more of that the better.”
Students from the university got to meet both the Dog Handler and both her dogs during the session.
Sgt. Becky Jones from the Dog Handler unit agreed that it was important for students to have these experiences. She said, “How would you know what we did if I or somebody else in my department didn’t come and tell you?
“It’s definitely important that you get that experience or some sort of input from somebody, so you have an idea of what we do.”
On the day she gave an informative talk and demonstration before answering plenty of questions from the students about her dogs, Dee Dee and Walt and what it is like to work as a Dog Handler. She also spoke about the best and worst parts of her job.
Sgt. Jones said, “The best thing is finding vulnerable, missing people with Dee Dee. If there’s people missing, their families are normally upset and to find them and reunite them with their family and get them the help they need, that’s the best thing.
“The worst thing is when the dogs aren’t well or you have to retire a dog, or have your dog re-handled by someone else. That’s really difficult, it doesn’t happen very often. But the worst thing is when they’re not very well because you can’t do anything for them. They can’t tell you what’s wrong so no matter how much you try to comfort them its never a nice experience.”
UCP continues to host exciting events just like this, and our reporters look forward to covering a whole variety of events. Have you got an event coming in? Let us know by contacting us below or via our socials.
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