A team from the New Zealand police dog unit have returned from a trip to Fiji where they looked at ways of assisting their counterparts there - a first step in re-establishing ties between the two forces.
The New Zealand Police Pacific Liaison Officer Superintendent Ross Ardern says it was a joint visit with Customs New Zealand to make an assessment of the Fiji canine unit.
Mr Ardern says they are still in the early stages of the review, but the focus is around border security and drug detector programmes for dogs.
"I mean drug seizures across the Pacific are becoming of more and more note. New Zealand of course has got its own interests at heart as well as those of its Pacific neighbours and we want to protect not only their borders but our borders as well from drug infiltration across the Pacific."
Ross Ardern says they have a long history of working with Fiji's canine unit that goes as far back as the 1960s.
He says they are considering other requests for assistance that have been made by Fiji police