Animal Detective

Chapter 335: Chapter 273: Assessment, Please Be Gentle

On the training ground, a row of three fiery hoops burned, their heat waves washing over everyone.

Li Jiahui blew her whistle to get Tian Kui’s attention, then ran forward with him. But just as they neared the hoops, he abruptly stopped and skirted around them.

"Tian Kui!"

Li Jiahui shouted, feigning a stern voice. "I just told you, this is your last chance. If you don’t do it, you’re not getting dinner tonight. And what happened? You just ran around it again."

Tian Kui barked twice at Li Jiahui, then turned his head away haughtily, a look of complete indifference on his face.

Li Jiahui frowned, at a bit of a loss.

She waved Shen Xin over. "Shen Xin, why don’t you try?"

The other police dogs did fine with the fire hoop exercise. Even Celestial Skill, who was always insecure and clinging to Shen Xin, could do it.

It was just Tian Kui.

Li Jiahui had told him over and over that jumping through the fiery hoops wasn’t scary and that he wouldn’t get hurt, but it was no use.

The problem wasn’t that he was timid.

When Shen Xin led him, Tian Kui jumped perfectly—clean, crisp, and easily clearing all three hoops.

It was only when she led him that Tian Kui refused to jump.

So, Li Jiahui concluded that she still hadn’t earned Tian Kui’s respect. Simply put, he didn’t submit to her, so he wouldn’t obey.

Shen Xin shook his head. "That won’t do. These dogs will eventually be handed over to other people. If they only behave for me and not for others, then they fail."

With the other police dogs, this wasn’t as much of a problem.

Take Tiger Stripes, for example. He was mischievous, but when Shen Xin wasn’t around, he was still obedient enough. At least Sun Zhao and Chen Chao could handle him.

But Tian Kui...

Shen Xin felt it was because of his strong wild instincts.

Like a wolf, he would only obey the Wolf King.

An ordinary person couldn’t command him without earning his respect first.

Li Mo offered a terrible idea. "Why don’t you fight him? If you can beat him into submission, that should solve the problem."

Tian Kui actually understood and looked at Li Jiahui, eager to give it a try.

Li Jiahui felt provoked and gritted her teeth. "Fine."

"What do you mean, ’fine’?"

Shen Xin cut her off, shooting an annoyed glare at Li Mo.

’This guy has definitely been used as a bite-sleeve target too many times in training. He’s just trying to get revenge.’

Shen Xin said, "There’s no other way. It has to be like this. Whether it works or not, we have to make it work."

Without absolute obedience, he couldn’t meet the requirements for this program.

He’ll have to be cut.

Then he’d probably have to be taken back to the branch office and just be looked after there.

Besides, Tian Kui wasn’t like other police dogs. The ’win him over with love’ approach wouldn’t work on him.

Li Jiahui beckoned Tian Kui over, squatting down to give him a scratch. Then she said, "Shen Xin, this is actually really hard on them."

"You know how it is here at the base. Once a police dog is assigned a handler, they almost never change."

Usually, a police dog will only have one handler for its entire service career.

It’s to build a deep bond.

In extreme cases, like if a handler resigns, they might get a new one. But if the dog doesn’t click with the new handler, they won’t force it. They might even opt for the dog’s early retirement.

But with Shen Xin’s situation—training them all here and then sending them off to a strange place with a stranger—Li Jiahui truly felt it was a difficult task.

Especially for a special dog like Tian Kui.

The more special they are, the more loyal they become. After accepting Shen Xin as his master, he wouldn’t easily switch allegiance.

Shen Xin knew this too. He ruffled Tian Kui’s head and said, "What else can we do? Let’s just try again."

The training continued until the sky was filled with the glow of sunset.

On one hand, Shen Xin needed Tian Kui and the other dogs to be versatile specialists.

They had to be able to track, sniff out drugs, detect bombs, and perform anti-riot duties.

With so many training subjects, it naturally took up a lot of time.

On the other hand, the Spring Grand Competition was imminent. Shen Xin had decided to participate and use it as a final graduation exam for these dogs.

Time was tight, so they definitely had to make every moment count in training.

And it wasn’t just Tian Kui’s group. The entire police dog base was now a whirlwind of intense training.

Before, after the scheduled daily training, the police dogs would get some free time to play.

Tian Kui used to often find other dogs at the base to play with.

He was especially good friends with a German Shepherd named Liehuo.

But not anymore.

Everyone had to do extra training. They needed to internally select the best dogs for the competition, so even that little bit of free time had to be utilized.

In this atmosphere of diligent training, time flew by especially quickly.

「Half a month passed in a flash.」

On March 20th, the base organized a major internal assessment.

The entire police dog base had 37 active-duty police dogs, and from them, six would be chosen across six categories to form a team for the competition.

Initially, Tang Changhong’s intention was to have Shen Xin also choose six dogs from his group to compete against the base’s dogs.

But Shen Xin refused.

Even if Tang Changhong said so, Shen Xin couldn’t just take him at his word.

For the base’s dogs and handlers, this competition was a chance to win glory.

’If I use my talent to my advantage and end up snatching all their spots in the competition, even if they don’t say anything, won’t they resent it?’

’After all, I’m an outsider, and these dogs in my care are going to be sent to other regions eventually.’

So Shen Xin proposed getting a separate spot for himself, like a wild card, allowing him to enter with just one dog.

If he did well, the credit would still go to the base.

This made Tang Changhong a little embarrassed.

But in the end, he agreed and asked Meng Fuqiang to actually get Shen Xin a separate entry spot.

The time was set for nine in the morning, to assemble on the main training ground.

When Shen Xin arrived that morning, everyone he met would proactively say to him, "Go easy on us."

Everyone at the police dog base had seen with their own eyes how quickly Tian Kui and the others were progressing.

What was even more incredible was that Tian Kui’s group was training in multiple disciplines at once, which increased the difficulty exponentially.

Adding to that their track record from the manhunt for Fan Lei, the other handlers could only think of one thing: ’Please go easy on us.’

"It’s not that exaggerated."

Shen Xin replied with a chuckle, then went to the kennels to let Tian Kui and the others out.

Celestial Skill immediately cozied up to Shen Xin’s side, as clingy as ever.

Even though she was nursing five puppies, she was living at the police dog base with good food and drink, so not only was Celestial Skill not drained, she had actually gotten a lot rounder.

Tian Kui came over too and barked at Celestial Skill.

Celestial Skill immediately and obediently moved aside, letting Tian Kui monopolize Shen Xin.

But her eyes remained fixed on Shen Xin.

Shen Xin gave Tian Kui an annoyed but light kick and said, "You’d better be on your best behavior for me today. It’s time to make me proud, understand?"

’Go easy on them or not, I’m not even taking up a spot. Can’t let them look down on me, right?’

Although that rascal Tian Kui wasn’t very obedient, his abilities were unquestionable. He learned professional skills in every area extremely quickly, and his overall capabilities were definitely the strongest.

Tian Kui barked once.

[Understood]

The assessment was held on the main training ground.

It was divided into the same six categories: public security and prevention, drug detection, bomb detection, bloodstain search, hard-surface tracking, and mountain tracking.

Public security and prevention included bite work and anti-riot exercises.

Mountain tracking and hard-surface tracking were quite different.

The mountain environment was simpler, but it tested a police dog’s stamina more, so the difficulty was actually not low.

The base’s 37 police dogs were all lined up.

Li Jiahui was also participating in the assessment, holding the leash of her dog, Simba.

As for Shen Xin’s side, with 38 police dogs, the presence was even more formidable.

But Tang Changhong hadn’t even finished his speech when, in a moment of inattention, Tian Kui ran over to flirt with Liehuo.

Liehuo was a female German Shepherd whose training was focused on tracking.

Her handler, Tang Kaihua, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he saw Tian Kui sniffing around Liehuo’s rear and tried to shoo him away.

"Tian Kui!"

Shen Xin snapped, and only then did Tian Kui trot back dejectedly.

Liehuo, who had been staring straight ahead, turned to look at Tian Kui, her gaze following him as he went.

Up front, Tang Changhong cleared his throat, pretended not to see anything, finished his speech, and signaled for the assessment to begin.

The first event was public security and prevention.

First were the basic exercises.

Such as formation keeping.

Anti-riot dogs generally work together in groups, so they need a sense of cooperation. They must maintain formation while advancing and respond promptly to various commands.

These were just the basics, child’s play for the base’s police dogs.

The intermediate exercises were a bit harder.

For example, crowd dispersal.

In a chaotic crowd, the anti-riot dog must control the scene through barking and other behaviors.

If it gets distracted and starts attacking people indiscriminately, it fails.

An even more difficult extension of this was to rapidly lock onto a target in a chaotic crowd and identify the weapon in the target’s hand, such as a dagger or a gasoline can.

After identification, it had to vocalize on its own to alert the handler.

Once the handler gave the command, it had to strike swiftly, ignore all distractions, go straight for the target, and precisely bite the hand holding the weapon to subdue them. ƒreewebɳovel.com

During this process, it also had to withstand the target’s counterattacks and absolutely could not let go.

This wasn’t even the hardest part.

The most difficult, advanced exercises involved smoke bombs, fires, loud noises, and various obstacles—for example, if the target was hiding in a car, the police dog had to accurately bite and apprehend them.

This was also a major reason why Shen Xin had only asked for a wild card spot.

Successfully training a police dog is truly no easy feat.

Li Jiahui also participated in this event with Simba.

Simba was a Ronaldo and also an anti-riot dog.

However, Li Jiahui had said before the competition that she wasn’t very confident, because Simba’s all-around abilities weren’t the best among the base’s six anti-riot dogs.

Sure enough, in the intermediate exercise—the one requiring an alert and target lock-on in a chaotic crowd—it took Simba 37 seconds to find the target.

The best of these anti-riot dogs was named Xiaoba.

He was a majestic Doberman.

He took only 17 seconds to lock onto the target holding the "dagger" from within the crowd of people running around.

And after his handler gave the command, he immediately shot through the crowd and took the target down with a flying leap.

He refused to let go, no matter how the target beat him with a rubber baton.

Li Jiahui comforted Simba for a bit, then shouted "Good luck!" to Shen Xin.

On the base’s side, there were only six anti-riot dogs.

But on Shen Xin’s side, all 38 police dogs had to participate in the assessment.

So today’s assessment felt more like it was being held specifically for Shen Xin.

Shen Xin gave Li Jiahui an "OK" gesture and led Tian Kui out to compete.

’Gotta make a strong first impression.’

The basic exercises didn’t need a comparison. They were too simple, and he passed them in one go.

When it came to the intermediate event, the same exercise of finding the target in a chaotic crowd, the "civilians" on site began to run around everywhere at the sound of the whistle.

Shen Xin immediately turned around with Tian Kui on his leash.

In an instant, there were people everywhere in front of them. Only one person in the middle had pulled out a dagger with his right hand.

The timer had already started.

Then, after just 6 seconds, Tian Kui started barking.

Li Yinjiang, who was timing them, did a double take.

’Six seconds... that’s too fast!’

"Go!"

At Shen Xin’s command, Tian Kui shot forward with a WHOOSH.

He deftly dodged the "civilians" running about, and with a flying leap, accurately latched onto the target’s right arm.

Clearly, he hadn’t mistaken the target. He had really found him in just 6 seconds.

Compared to the performance of the top dog, Xiaoba, Tian Kui’s was an absolute demolition.