By Song Chen and Huang Qin
　　
　　It’s 6 o’clock in the morning, and at the police dog training center in a quiet suburban part of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, an officer is putting a trainee canine through his paces. At the center, which is on Xuecheng road in Daoli district, the trainer and pooch have already been practicing various maneuvers for more than an hour, from sitting to standing, tracking to attacking. Day in and day out, year after year, they are here, practicing diligently always with a mission in mind.
　　The trainer is Lu Boyang. After graduating from the police dog skill department of the Criminal Investigation Police University of China in 2012, he joined the police force, training police dogs in the police dog squad under the forensic science and technology branch of the Harbin Public Security Bureau. Lu has already personally trained three award-winning dogs accredited by the Ministry of Public Security: Kaoben, Wudi, and Nimo. As an instructor, he has led his team to train a total of 10 exceptional police dogs. The now 36-year-old Lu has been honored with one medal of merit and the title of "the Most Beautiful Grass-roots Police Officer" and "National Outstanding Police Officer".

　　"No Textbook Available"
　　
　　Lu met Kaoben, who would later become an outstanding police dog, in 2015, and since then he has established a rapport with his partner.
　　Great dogs tend to have strong personalities. When they first met, Kaoben, a 6-month-old puppy who was still weaning, left Lu with bite marks that stayed sore for days. For months afterward, Lu spent all his time around the cute puppy—befriending it, nurturing it, and starting to train it. Lu studied its temper and habits keenly on the training ground and crafted the most suitable coaching plans. It had become Lu’s sole purpose to train Kaoben into an excellent police dog, and he even gave up the opportunity to take the self-taught undergraduate education exam to focus on Kaoben. This is also why Lu named the dog "Kaoben", which in Chinese means "attain a bachelor’s degree". Lu’s unyielding spirit also exerted a subtle influence on Kaoben. Now they both encourage each other to constantly pursue better versions of themselves.
　　Time flies. Lu’s diligence pays off. In 2018, Lu and Kaoben took part in the quinquennial National Police Dog Skill Competition. They stood out in a fiercely competitive field of over 100 pairs of police dogs and trainers, finishing the in-door raid section of the competition four times faster than the second-placed pair.
　　"There’s no textbook to follow for police dog training. It requires total dedication, both mental and physical, to train an excellent police dog," Lu says.
　　Initially, Lu trained up to six dogs by himself, aged from only a couple of months to three years. Coming from different countries, they had unique temperaments, eye expressions, and behaviors, but Lu noticed one common denominator among them— changes in pupil size. By combining theories he had learned in school with experience accumulated during practical training, he has developed an ability to identify a dog’s emotions by reading its eyes. When the dog’s pupils dilate it is distracted, meaning the training won’t be effective whatever the trainer does. On the other hand, when the dog’s pupils contract it is concentrating, and ready to learn. In this scenario, the training can be surprisingly successful.
　　According to Lu, police dogs view training and operations as a "game", and their biggest desire is to get food rewards by "winning". Therefore, Lu always provides food incentives whenever they finish training or perform duties. These rewards are small balls made of beef, eggs, and dog food. The sight of the balls will make their mouth water, thereby working harder for best performance.
　　"The tail of a tracking dog can tell you if it is drawing nearer to the target. Regardless of the tail’s length, rapid wagging indicates that the dog has found the target." Lu can be garrulous when it comes to dog training.
　　During one autumn, a farmer’s corn field was reduced to ashes after an arson attack. Lu took Xinxing, a tracking dog, to help investigate the case. The dog sniffed the odor from the footprints on the scene before rushing out to hunt for the suspect. Finally, it zigzagged its way into a mud hut and mouthed a pair of dirty rubber-soled shoes under the edge of the brick bed. Seeing Xinxing moving its tail in excitement, Lu was convinced that the dog had found the suspect. Later interrogation confirmed that the house owner was indeed the arsonist.
　　It was once a challenge for police dogs to track suspects in mountains and forests. From October 2015 to March 2016, Lu and nine other police dog trainers from across China participated in a national workshop by the Ministry of Public Security, with a view to providing theoretical guidance. His participation resulted in a research paper entitled "Dogs’ Hunting and Defending Motivation and the Timing of Switch", published in the China Working Dog Journal. He also invented a multiple-purpose scent-tracking training toolbox, which has been provided for free as technical support in all police dog training facilities nationwide. As he sharpened his police dog training capability over the years, he was eventually selected as one of the country’s talented police dog trainers, as a special instructor for hunting dog training, and as a young talent for crime solving techniques with the Ministry of Public Security.
　　
　　Leads through Persistent Search
　　
　　"Training is the foundation for winning every combat. It is the greatest wish of all trainers for their police dogs to be able to play a pivotal role in fighting crime." An industrious, persevering, and dedicated trainer, Lu is convinced that clues to a case will won’t be uncovered without meticulous search.
　　In 2018, Lu and his team members cracked a murder case that sparked painful social repercussions. During the operation, three sniffer dogs searched 17 kilometers in relays for two days and nights straight and finally identified the suspect’s escape route. In 2014, to investigate a case of murder, Lu and his police dogs searched a room less than 20-meters-squared hundreds of times, eventually detecting a speck of blood that provided direct evidence to validate the room as the primary crime scene. In September 2020, a criminal suspect escaped by bus after raping a minor. By sniffing out the scent at the crime scene, Lu and his police dogs pointed the direction to track down the suspect.
　　Over the years, Lu and his trained police dogs have worked closely together, playing a critical role in hunting down criminals, identifying physical evidence, guarding prisoners, and going on patrol.
　　Lu’s workload surged as he was promoted as deputy chief of the squad. He spearheaded efforts to fulfill his duties. For instance, he carries out more than 300 anti-explosion and security inspections annually—not once has one of these operations ended in failure. Day or night, Lu always stays ready to spring into action with his police dogs and fulfills every one of his appointed tasks with distinction. Over a decade into his service, Lu and his police dogs have performed over 4,000 security inspections and guard tasks for large-scale activities, detected more than 80 pieces of evidence, and helped crack 45 cases.
　　The deep bond between Lu and dogs can be traced back to his childhood. His grandpa kept a dog of an unknown breed. After his grandpa passed away, the dog starved itself to death at the front door of his grandpa’s house. Lu was astonished at the loyalty of the dog which sacrificed its own life to follow its owner. From then on, Lu has found himself deeply attached to this loyal animal and did not hesitate to choose to study police dog skills when admitted to the Criminal Investigation Police University of China.
　　It is easy to make a choice but hard to stick it out. Lu believes it takes three years to understand police dog training, five years to be an expert, and ten years to make a breakthrough. He has never contemplated a shift to another career, regardless. Lu has dedicated himself to police dog training and spared no efforts in studying advanced training methods. At the peak of his coaching, Lu alone trained six police dogs to detect explosives, track down criminals, and search for blood stains.
　　It is technically demanding and physically dangerous to train police dogs. To train a police dog, especially in jumping and biting, a trainer has to try to excite the dog, and it’s common for trainers to get bitten. Lu was accidentally hurt by an aggressive dog during a training session when he served as an instructor of the first guard dog training class launched by the Public Security Department of Heilongjiang Province. Luckily, Lu reacted swiftly and held the dog’s nose firmly with his hand just in time. The dog failed to bite his neck but did crush the thumb of his left hand. Over the last decade, Lu has suffered eight wounds from dogs during training. He often jokes that his scars are "medals" for an officer like him.
　　Dog training is dirty, exhausting, dangerous, challenging and lonely. Spending years with these "canine comrades" has cast a unique, stubborn "dog odor" all over him. Despite possible despise from some people, Lu tells his team: "If that odor ever vanishes, you are no longer a qualified police dog trainer." In his mind, the odor is a hallmark of the proud profession.
　　Lu’s wife was expecting their baby when puppy Kaoben came into his life. However, Lu spent most of his days training Kaoben, leaving little time to stay with his pregnant wife. Their daughter’s name, "Yunlai", was a message of complaint from his wife about Lu’s failure to fulfill his promises to come home. Despite this complaint, his family showed unreserved support for his work. The first few words their daughter learned to say were "dad", "mom", and "Bro Kaoben".
　　"Don’t wait for me, you can eat dinner first. I have some urgent work to finish." This kind of replies to his wife happened almost every day. To attend the province’s first guard dog training session, he packed his bags and left home only 10 days after their daughter was born. He was sad at the sight of his dismayed wife but was quite happy to know that his trainees cracked cases with the help of their police dogs.
　　In Lu’s mind, police dogs are brave soldiers, silent yet staunch comrade-in-arms. He and his dogs must train themselves assiduously at any cost so that they can be well-equipped to combat crimes and safeguard peace and security. That way, they can serve the people loyally and professionally.■
　　
　　(Translated by Zhang Yanzhou)