April Fool from the Swedish Home Guard and Swedish Police

The world is like a bad April Fool’s joke at the moment so I did not even look for anything ridiculous (figuring it would probably end up being true). I did stumble upon these though, and they made me smile.

Your cat can join in as the Home Guard expands the sensor chain
In recent years, our combat force has greatly expanded and developed the sensor chain. Drones, the dog and TMM form a system of systems. Now cat commanders are also being added to the sensor chain.

‘With the cat, we have the unique ability to silently move forward at all angles, as the cat is, among other things, a well-qualified climber. In addition, it is very resource-efficient considering that we have 9 lives to work with. If something goes wrong, we immediately have a new attempt, something that takes inspiration from the world of computer games’ says Lieutenant Colonel Måns Bullson.

The cat’s unique hunting instinct has proven to be unsurpassed in detecting movements and objects that deviate from the normal picture. The night vision also gives the unit more endurance around the clock, regardless of weather and terrain.
For some time, tests and trials with cat platoons have been carried out at the Home Guard’s combat school. Cat officers with their own cats are trained with a joint GU-F, position training and HV intro. The ambition is that it will be merged into a compressed cat handling training (KMPKTTEKIUTB).

Applications open on April 1, 2026.
– All cats are welcome, as long as they have the right instincts, Bullson concludes.

And the police joined in:

In a brand new collaboration with the police, we have now started training police cats, with suitable cats that have passed the selection tests.This will be another tool for the police to use when necessary, as cats are smaller than police dogs, but also have a good sense of smell, so cats can get where dogs can’t.