Animal Detective

Chapter 555: Chapter 457: Feels a Bit Like Child’s Play

There are four major police dog bases in the country.

There’s one in Ningshan, the same police dog research institute where Meng Fuqiang serves as an adjunct professor.

It’s the top institution in the country for police dog training and research.

And in Spring City, there’s one as well.

The Spring City base is also renowned throughout the country.

This is because they researched and bred the country’s only superior working dog breed: the Kunming Dog.

It’s one of a kind in the nation.

Other police dog bases primarily import superior breeds from abroad. Only Spring City has achieved localization, breaking new ground.

For the base’s secretary and director, Zhangchaoshan, this was a great source of pride.

On the evening of the 19th, Zhangchaoshan hadn’t left work. He was on the northeastern outskirts of the base, supervising workers as they installed a wire fence.

Office Director Niu Xiaoguang was there too.

He frowned looking at the temporary sheet-metal huts. "Secretary, aren’t these conditions a bit too crude?"

The entire police dog base covered 130 mu—not exceptionally large, to be honest.

After receiving the assignment, the base had considered its options.

The existing kennels inside were insufficient.

The base maintained a significant number of police dogs year-round.

On one hand, they had their own selective breeding and scientific research programs, and on the other, they had to supply successfully trained police dogs to various parts of the country.

They consistently kept forty to fifty adult dogs alone.

The base also had another important mission: to host training programs for handlers and their dogs from all over the country.

In other words, handlers from other bases would bring the police dogs they had purchased or bred to train at the facility.

This program was of a roughly equivalent scale.

As a result, the base housed around a hundred police dogs awaiting training at any given time.

Each police dog required its own individual kennel, so no matter how they crunched the numbers, they couldn’t free up enough space for Shen Xin’s several hundred prospective police dogs.

After some discussion, Shen Xin’s side proposed a solution: fence off a separate area and have the dogs live communally, without individual kennels.

And so, they had simply marked off an area at the foot of the mountain on the base’s outskirts and put up some temporary, simple shelters.

The dogs would live there and be brought to the main base to use its training facilities.

Zhangchaoshan sighed. "This was all too rushed. There wasn’t enough time, so we’ll have to make do for now."

Only a few days had passed since they received the notice.

And now Shen Xin was about to arrive with several hundred dogs. They were completely unprepared.

He nudged Niu Xiaoguang, telling him to go watch over the area outside the fence.

There were workers here, and the base’s officers were also busy on the periphery, clearing away undergrowth.

"The undergrowth must be completely cleared. Leave a wide enough firebreak. And the snake-repellent powder—make sure it’s spread thoroughly. This is the time of year for snakes. It would be dangerous if they got inside the fence."

This flurry of activity continued until nearly eight o’clock in the evening before it finally wrapped up.

After waiting a little longer, they finally got the call: they were here.

A crowd had spontaneously gathered at the base’s entrance.

They were there partly to provide support and partly out of curiosity.

"Secretary, can he really train stray dogs into police dogs? How on earth does he do it?" the director of the Breeding and Research Department couldn’t help but mutter.

The news had spread long ago.

Word was, there was an expert who was attempting to double the number of drug-sniffing dogs in the entire country.

Everyone admired his ambition and audacity, but as experts in the relevant field, they knew all too well how difficult the task was.

Training a qualified police dog was by no means a simple matter.

The 1,800 police dogs across the nation were the cumulative result of decades of hard work by countless police dog bases.

After all, a qualified police dog could serve for several years.

And even with that, they had only amassed 1,800.

But Shen Xin? He comes along and says he’ll double the number. That was like him single-handedly accomplishing decades of work from all the country’s bases in one fell swoop.

Zhangchaoshan craned his neck to look. "There’s always someone better out there," he said casually. "The man has the skill. We shouldn’t overthink it. Just do our best to cooperate."

After learning about the situation, he had made some careful inquiries and found out just how capable Shen Xin was.

Shen Xin was the one who pioneered training adult stray dogs into police dogs.

And he had succeeded.

Through a single police dog donation project, he had somehow managed to produce two nationally famous decorated service dogs.

And then there was Celestial Skill.

With Celestial Skill’s abilities, it wouldn’t be long—he would probably be decorated by next year.

So, as inconceivable as this whole affair was, the facts were right in front of him. Beyond amazement, Zhangchaoshan had no other thoughts.

"Besides, for us, this is also an excellent opportunity for study and research."

"Especially your Breeding and Research Department. Track and record everything carefully. See what’s so special about his methods."

Training strays with unstable temperaments into working dogs was just so counterintuitive.

Just as he was speaking, the trucks arrived.

Four large, high-sided trucks pulled up, one after another.

"Good heavens, that’s a lot."

The few base leaders who were present glanced over and were all taken aback.

Each truck was double-decked and packed with dogs.

"Secretary, I don’t think the area we prepared is going to be big enough," Niu Xiaoguang said, standing beside Zhangchaoshan with undisguised shock in his eyes.

He was shocked by two things: first, the sheer number, and second, the breeds of the dogs.

It was a bizarre assortment, a real hodgepodge of every kind imaginable.

The lead truck stopped, and Shen Xin, who had been riding in the passenger seat, was the first to jump out and walk over.

Originally, Shen Xin had thought that getting several hundred, or even thousands, of dogs would be very difficult.

But once he actually went to Yulin, Shen Xin realized it wasn’t as hard as he’d imagined.

To put it simply, Shen Xin had never seen so many dogs in his entire life.

It felt like every dog trader in the country was sending dogs to Yulin.

Wang Donghai had mentioned before that during the peak of the summer solstice in Yulin, over ten thousand dogs could be "consumed" in a single day.

Having seen it for himself, Shen Xin now believed it.

With such a massive selection pool, he felt that forgetting the original plan of four hundred—even reaching his goal of 2,400—would be no problem at all.

And indeed, it went smoothly.

He had gone on the 16th, and in just three days, he had selected 478 dogs from among thousands.

He had already completed his initial goal.

The reason he didn’t continue selecting more was that he had received an urgent message.

The most important mission of his trip to Dian Nan was about to begin.

He could buy dogs anytime, but the mission couldn’t wait. So, Shen Xin immediately had the dogs loaded up and rushed back to Spring City.

The people from the Ningshan Anti-Narcotics Division had already arrived. As soon as he unloaded the dogs, he had to go meet them.

"Secretary Zhang."

Shen Xin and Zhangchaoshan had spoken on the phone.

Zhangchaoshan dazedly shook Shen Xin’s hand, his face a mask of unconcealed shock. He pointed at the trucks and asked how many there were.

When he heard the exact number, he drew in another sharp breath.

"This is... far too many."

Zhangchaoshan’s eyes glazed over as he stared.

When they had spoken on the phone, he had gotten a rough idea of Shen Xin’s plan. He knew Shen Xin intended to start with just a fraction.

But this "fraction" alone was four hundred dogs!

As for Shen Xin’s choice to buy them in Yulin, Zhangchaoshan thought it was a good idea.

’But the key thing is, Shen Xin left on the 16th and today is only the 19th! How did he bring back so many in just a few days?’

Just now, Niu Xiaoguang had said the prepared area might not be enough.

At this moment, all Zhangchaoshan could think was, ’Forget space, we don’t have enough people either!’

When the training started, the base would definitely have to cooperate and help out.

But the problem was, the base only had eighty or ninety people, including himself.

With nearly five hundred dogs, there was no way that was enough.

They wouldn’t even be able to manage them all.

And these dogs...

Zhangchaoshan moved a little closer. Inside the pens, most of the dogs were huddled in the shadows, only their fearful, panicked eyes visible.

Others, however, were overly active, running around wildly and even biting and fighting with each other.

"Shen Xin, forgive me for asking, but... you’ve already screened all of these?" he asked, pointing at the trucks.

Zhangchaoshan had never tried to train strays into police dogs.

But based on his professional experience, the dogs’ physical condition and temperament had to be tested, evaluated, and carefully selected, at the very minimum.

And Shen Xin?

It felt like he had just gone to Yulin, casually rounded up a few hundred dogs, and brought them back. It seemed a bit... frivolous.

Shen Xin nodded. "That’s right. I selected every one of them."

Zhangchaoshan fell silent.

’If Shen Xin says so, then it must be so,’ he thought. ’Besides, there wasn’t even enough time for a proper selection.’

For now, he first led Shen Xin to see the prepared living area.

"Shen Xin, time was too short and the space is too small. How about this? I can free up some rooms in the work area to house them," Zhangchaoshan suggested.

He had never imagined Shen Xin would bring back so many in one go.

Shen Xin took a quick look around and said, "Secretary Zhang, compared to the conditions they were living in before, this is already very good."

"A place to shelter from the wind and rain and something to eat is enough. They aren’t puppies; they’re adult dogs. They’re not that delicate."

When he bought them, they were all curled up in cramped cages with no room to even turn around. Coming to a place like this, where they could stretch their legs and run, was already heaven for them.

Since Shen Xin put it that way, Zhangchaoshan could only nod.

But he couldn’t help but feel that his words sounded a bit off. ’What does he mean, "not that delicate"? Is he talking about the police dogs here at the base, the ones living in their own large, private rooms?’

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