"It's not uncommon for Malimois to give birth to seven or eight puppies, but 14 are not. Certainly it's a record for this breed in Hong Kong," said Senior Inspector (Training & Support) Ng Kwok-wing.

He explained that PDU has to run its own breeding programme to meet operational needs and save funds. "We do buy good breeds from overseas from time to time in order to achieve a full strength of over 80 police dogs, but we can't do this every year, so we've to run our own breeding programme," he added.

Four-year-old Nona was bought from Holland in July 2002 when she was a five-month puppy. After training, she was posted to Tuen Mun District in 2003, together with her handler, PC Chan Man-chung, and had worked for two and a half years before giving birth.

SIP Ng expects Nona to resume duty in two or three months.

Nona will stay close to her "children" for two to three months before resuming duty