Every morning, senior police dog trainer Long Ling walks into a kennel on the outskirts of Kunming, Yunnan province, greeting a Kunming dog named Kun Kun with a familiar call.

Breakfast is waiting. Once a week, Long pays out of his own pocket to give Kun Kun an extra meal — a big portion of beef on this day. "I come in on weekends as well," he said. "It's not that the dog can't do without me; it's that I can't do without the dog. This is not just my job, but also my way of life."

At 2 years old, Kun Kun is no pet. He serves as a teaching demonstration dog in police training courses. Focused and alert, he responds swiftly to commands, tail wagging as he finishes his meal.

An all-rounder among police dogs, Kun Kun is among the standouts of his breed, Kunming dog, a Chinese-developed working dog increasingly deployed across the country.

"The Kunming dog is a unique breed developed by the Ministry of Public Security's Kunming police dog base through more than six decades of work," said Chen Chao, a researcher at the base. "It was bred using local canine resources through the efforts of several generations of police dog professionals."

The breed traces its origins to the 1950s, when police forces in Yunnan, a high-altitude plateau region, began breeding a homegrown working dog capable of meeting the demands of police and security work in various environments.

Over the decades that followed, the Kunming police dog base led a systematic breeding program, applying successive rounds of group selection and other scientific methods to establish a stable, reliable working breed.

In 1988, the breed passed ministry-level verification and was formally named the "Kunming dog", marking its official recognition within China's policing system. Further institutional acknowledgment followed in 2007, when it was approved by the National Commission on Genetic Resources for Livestock and Poultry and included in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity.

That designation made the Kunming dog China's first, and so far only, police dog breed to receive international recognition for independent intellectual property rights. Research related to the breed has also earned multiple national science and technology awards.

The Kunming dog has what Long describes as an "Eastern" temperament — reserved and restrained. Building trust with its handler takes time. Once that bond is formed, its courage and loyalty rival those of any top working dog in the world, Long said.

That temperament is precisely what makes the Kunming dog effective across a wide range of demanding tasks.

According to Chen, the breed is now widely deployed by China's public security authorities, customs, fire services and the military. Developed domestically, it is well-adapted to China's diverse climates, terrains and operational environments.

The Ministry of Public Security has recently launched efforts to further promote the use of the Kunming dog in police work nationwide, aiming to increase the breed's presence in front-line units and strengthen independent capabilities in police dog technology.

According to the ministry, as global competition in police dog technology intensifies, maintaining stable, high-quality working dog resources adapted to local conditions has become a key factor in strengthening public security capacity.

Beyond domestic deployment, Kunming dogs have also been introduced to more than 10 countries and regions, including Singapore, Vietnam and Pakistan, serving as ambassadors of international police cooperation and showcasing China's growing expertise in police dog development, according to the ministry.

Xinhua