The police dog unit which covers Herts, Beds and Cambs is appealing for help in deciding on a name for their newest recruit.

A new six week long training course for six dogs and their handlers, who will work across the three counties, began last week.

One dog, who came from a rescue centre in Devon, is already picking up skills quickly but he has the same name – Duke – as one of the other dogs on the course.

Now the unit is looking for a new name to avoid confusion during the training process, and has come up with a shortlist of nine names so that Facebook fans can vote for their favourite.

Names in the running are: Buzz, Charlie, Frank, Taz, Tiggy, Trigger, Whizz, Zippy and Yoda.

In order to vote people will need to first ‘like’ the unit’s Facebook page, which launched on Monday. People will then be able to cast a vote on the poll set up on the page.

Voting closes at 3.30pm on Friday, June 5, and the winning name will be announced soon after.

You can find the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BCHPoliceDogs.

There’s also Twitter feed (@dogpoliceBCH) which has more than 1,000 followers.

The unit’s Sergeant Vicky Stoughton said: “Our Twitter account has already proved quite popular and we hope the public enjoy this new way of finding out what the team has been up to.

“The page will also provide an opportunity for people to ask us any questions they may have about our role and our dogs.”