Military dog training at Melton base adapted for lockdown restrictions

Changes have had to be made to operations at The Defence Animal Training Regiment centre, off Asfordby Road, which is home to more than 300 animals being trained to assist the armed forces.

Social distancing practices have been adopted on the site but it is still partly business as usual, with handlers working to turn the dogs there into fully-fledged military workers.

Warrant Officer Jonathan Tanner, chief instructor of the Canine Training Squadron, said: “We have to stick to the government-prescribed social distancing guidelines of two metres between people.

“But our own guidelines insist that there are five metres in between dogs on the lead anyway, so we have no issues with sticking to those government guidelines.”

For the more than 100 working dogs on-site, life for them has not changed too much.

Training of people, on the other hand, has had to stop.

“In line with many other military establishments, training of people has been temporarily suspended, so we are standing ready to reactivate that training engine,” said Major Drew Tootal, the regiment’s second in command.

“What we haven’t been able to do, is just turn off that training for the animals.

“So the dogs, in particular the training in itself, is mentally stimulating - it’s absolutely essential for their wellbeing and for their mental health.

“Whilst we’ve changed the way in which we’ve done it, we are still having to carry out that training so that they can be maintained, so when the training pipeline does come back online, we can do it as seamlessly and painlessly as possible.”

There are currently more than four times the amount of horses staying on the site as there would usually be because of the pause in ceremonial duties.

They have come to Melton for an unexpected summer holiday from the London barracks of the Household Cavalry and the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery with the usual programme of ceremonies being cancelled due to the pandemic.

Normally there would be around 40 or 50 horses at the DATR and now there are more than 200.

To care for the increased number of horses, manpower and land has been freed up.

“Of the 350 acres, we’ve got about 180 acres of purely grazing land,” Major Tootal said.

Some of the military horses have also been looked after at a farm near Melton during the lockdown period.

The horses will return to London once the regiments can go back to their ceremonial duties.