But four plaques beneath the trees at the Australian Federal Police's canine operations centre at Majura also show that for all the upsides to this working life, there are also some canine casualties along the way.

The small marble plaques, inscribed with the names of Ulric, Finn, Raven and Blade, mark the sites where the ashes were scattered of those general purpose dogs that died on operational duty; these are the big and often ferocious dogs that have the primary task of flushing out offenders in hiding, physically taking them on, or hunting them down.

So while there's an opportunity for rare visitors to the Majura kennels to approach and pet the police sniffer dogs, there's active discouragement to do the same for the menacing and athletic German Shepherds that patrol the tall chain link fencing, barking and eyeing off any errant limbs into which they would dearly wish to sink their teeth.

One of the stars of the kennels is not one that cost $15,000 and comes ready-bred for police training from the Australian Border Force canine breeding program in Melbourne, as many are.

Rather he was found, emaciated and alone, out at the Cotter by the ACT government dog rangers back in 2016 and taken to the pound.

No-one at the Majura kennels can figure out quite what breed of dog Chase is - part Labrador and kelpie with a bit of something else is the best guess - but what they know is that he's quite exceptional.

"Chase is a one in a 1000 dog," his handler, leading senior constable Simon Aldridge, said proudly.

"With rescue dogs, their previous home life usually makes them unsuitable for a working life but we keep in regular contact with domestic animal services because you just never know.

"When they gave us a call about this young feller, we thought we should take a look.

"The first thing we look for is the dog's level of energy, their drive and how keen the dog is to chase a tennis ball."

Chase, of course, was true to his name.

"He'd jump through fire for a tennis ball," he said.

Most sniffer dogs at Majura have one or two detection skills. Chase has three: he can sniff out firearms, drugs and currency. And that makes him a rare and valued constabulary canine.

In just over two years of active duty Chase has been involved in some 60 successful seizures. His most celebrated drug find was in a city apartment back in December 2017 when detectives knew for near-certain their suspect had a sizeable stash squirrelled away somewhere.

"The suspect was out on the apartment balcony watching the search go on and looking pretty smug," senior constable Aldridge said.

"Then when Chase went into the kitchen and sat down with his nose pointed toward the oven door, that look changed pretty quickly."

Secreted beneath false floorboards behind the inbuilt oven's cavity was a sizeable stash of illicit drugs - cocaine, methamphetamine and 1000 pills of ecstacy - plus $90,000 in cash and 200 vials of steroids.

Simon Aldridge likes to use a stew analogy to compare the olfactory capability of a dog against those of a human being.

"If you take a stew cooking on a stove, all humans can smell is the stew," he said.

"But a dog can smell every ingredient in the stew. That's why people who try to hide drugs or cash inside something which has a really powerful odour, like coffee or petrol, are rarely successful.

"We've found cash hidden deep in a petrol tank, so that old ruse doesn't work either."