To police dogs, with love

Rameshinder Singh Sandhu

If  your travel plans are taking you to Chicago, known for its architecture and skyscrapers, you will also be greeted by more than 100 fibreglass dog statues, painted in different colours and designs on several streets in the downtown.

Interestingly, each one of these sculptures is a ‘German Shepherd’ and has a ‘police’ connection. The exhibition is dedicated to Chicago police dogs for the hard work they do every day to assist the police officers in keeping the city safe.

An initiative of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation (CPMF) and Chicago Paws (CP), the exhibits are on display till early next year. 

Besides saluting police dogs that go for building searches, detect narcotics and explosives, search for evidence and even missing people, the exhibition also gave a platform to hundreds of local artists, including three police artists who designed and painted these sculptors which stand sponsored by a local company, individual or a family.

Also open for sale, funds raised will go for training more dogs for assisting the police, for helping the families of fallen or wounded police officers and overall welfare of CP — the home of pets.

Coming to how each of these sculptures fascinate the tourists which also carries the name of the dog, name of the artist who worked on it and the sponsor, these are actually being photographed many times more than the skyscrapers around. 

While some of these sculptures are painted as wearing duty uniforms, including the safety helmets worn during a bomb detection, glasses and name batches, some of their backs are painted with safety messages for the public and their daily routines. There are also those that are painted with city attractions and adorning all kind of colours — be it yellow, blue, pink or orange attracting one and all towards them. Then there are also those who are carrying the written city history, cartoon conversations on the city, sketches of their duty scenes and so on — grabbing every eye.

And, how these are all positioned (majority on Michigan Avenue) does make a point as despite being sculptures, these clearly seem to be guarding the downtown other than offering a warm welcome to the city. Moreover, these appear quite real as if are busy observing their surroundings. These have been placed in front of hotel doors, shops, showrooms, bus stops (guarding both sides), sitting in the planted areas, and even some of the secluded corners — taking note of their city and in return, everyone who sees them comes running to them to hug them followed by selfies and pictures and, of course, they deserved to be hugged for the work they do.

Then are also many of the tourists, who taking note of the police connection, can’t hold themselves on approaching the nearby policemen on duty to know more about this exhibition and the answers go on to praising them — calling them their canine heroes that never let them down.