The number of cases in which police dogs have been mobilized in Japan has almost doubled in the past decade as more canines are used to search for people following disasters, officials of the National Police Agency said Saturday. There were about 8,400 instances across Japan last year when police dogs were mobilized, compared with some 4,300 cases in 1998, they said.
   
Of last year’s figure, approximately 4,700 cases involved the search for missing persons, topping some 3,700 cases in which dogs were used during a police investigation. There are about 1,500 police dogs in Japan.