NORTH Yorkshire’s canine crime-fighters have moved into the digital age by taking to Twitter.

Dog handler PC Scott Nixon said: “We’re using Twitter to help keep people informed of our work and to give them an insight into the role of the dog section.

“Our dogs provide invaluable assistance in a variety of policing situations. They are also very popular with members of the public. We’ll be tweeting about new recruits, training and ongoing jobs around York and North Yorkshire.

“We’ve had a great response so far with over 600 followers in the first few days of tweeting.”

The force has 35 police dogs from general purpose to specialist search dogs.

Among their many and varied tasks, police dogs help the police to apprehend suspects, find missing people, control public order situations, sniff out items such as explosives and drugs and search for evidence to help bring offenders to justice.

Follow @NYPDogSection.