I think it probably still is the largest police search operation in history. No, he basically took her off the street. And, yeah, well, she just disappeared off the face of the earth, basically.  I mean, I've never worked in an environment as it was in Wales, in a small, little, quiet country town.  Neil, how are you, sir? I'm very good. I'm very good. How are you? Yes, excellent, mate. I really appreciate you coming to chat. Do you know what? I mean, I genuinely appreciate you asking me to come on. I don't know whether my story and stuff will be what people all want to hear, but, you know, we'll give it a spin and see what comes. Yeah, I have a kind of, you know, my approach to podcasting, mate, is I just want to chat to the people that I'd never get a chat. You know, when am I going to meet someone that knows as much about dog handling and the police and how it all works? Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. Everybody has their own life experiences, don't they, at the end of the day? So, yeah, I mean, you get to hear that the celebrities are always on podcast, aren't they? And they're always on telly. So it's, it's a... I haven't got a face for telly, though. Unfortunately, I've got a face for radio. Yeah, I just like, I think there's so many valuable stories that shouldn't be forgotten. Yeah. They tend to be from quite humble people like yourself that are like, well, do you want to hear my story? It's like, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I must admit it was a, I listened to your podcast for a long time. I do enjoy them a lot. I mean, I've got, I spend a lot of time driving because I drive 83 miles to work when I go to work, so I have a lot of time on my hands. So podcasts have become my new thing to listen to, and I started listening to you and you do some, you do some great content, I have to say. Well, thank you. I'm quite surprised that you wanted to speak to me, put it that way. Yeah, no, obviously, big respect to our police force and for the job that you guys do. And let's be honest, people love animals in this country, don't they? The majority, I should say, probably not everybody. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the country as a whole is very pro animals. I've obviously, I've got some experience doing search. I had search dogs as well as GP dogs, the biting dogs or the patrol dogs. Dogs can be, dogs are a sort of conversation starter, I think, if that makes sense. I used to work at Heathrow doing some stuff and people, they wouldn't routinely come up and talk to a police officer unless they needed help or they wanted something, if that makes sense, or they wanted to know something, sorry. But then with the dog, it's an icebreaker, definitely. Does that become a bit of an issue? Because obviously, the dogs in your role, they're professionals as well, they're doing a job and do people come up and try? I mean, if I was doing work, if I was on a search at Heathrow, doing odds and sobs with my search dog, I wouldn't want people bothering the dog. If we were doing, we used to do foot patrols and stuff. So if you're doing a patrol around the airport as some sort of high visibility, reassurance policing, then as long as the dog wasn't engaged in his role, I wouldn't have a massive issue. You know, kids want to come up and talk to the dog, just adults in general. So as long as people ask, sometimes I would get... What's the best word to say? Sometimes I might get a bit grumpy if someone starts sort of bothering the dog while he's working. But at the end of the day, that too comes with the role, if that makes sense. You can't really get bent out of shape if someone just wants to talk to the dog. You just sort of have to try to be diplomatic and say, you know, look, give us 10 minutes, let me finish what I'm doing.  Yes. Is it always that thing where if the dog's got its, you know, harness on or whatever, it's in work mode and the dog understands that? Yeah, sometimes.   So you can turn up as long as people haven't been around the car, then the dog should latch on to the most recent human scent. So you can work the dog around the car and the dog will go and in theory and in practice, they'll follow every footstep and take you to a point where the track finishes. Be it. But we have a lot of success.  Sometimes you get to a point where intelligence later tells you that a car picked them up or anything like that. So yeah, when you put that harness on, that is a key point or a trigger and the dog sort of sits there and goes, all right, okay, we're doing that now, if that makes sense. Yeah, got you. Do you have any knowledge of the round moat incident? No, well, I know of a handler.  He went up there to do part of that as one of the firearm support dogs from the Met. But no, from Raoul, only what was on the news, if that makes sense. I wasn't, when was it? I can't remember when it was. Gosh, it was a good five or six years ago now, wasn't it? I think it might even be more than that. No, but I mean, I think when major incidents like that occur, then there's a thing in the police called mutual aid where one force can ring a central place and say, look, we need some help. Like the Met did it for the Olympics. There's police officers and dogs from all around the UK come down to London to help with the Olympics. So that incident in itself was a firearms operation, wasn't it? So they need certain people with certain skills and certain dogs with certain skills. So yeah, the Met did send a couple. But no, it's not for me personally. The only major thing I dealt with was the April Jones search when the little girl went missing in Wales. What was the outcome of that? I can't remember. No, so she was taken off the street by the suspect. And sadly, and it's one of my major regrets in my career, we never found her. But I spent... Never ever, no? No, no. So we went looking for her. I spent probably eight or nine weeks solid from sort of the start of October in Wales. I basically, my Mrs was kind enough to sort of say, look, you need to go, so go.  So we went and we were part of... Some of them are retired, some of them aren't. And there was officers from literally all over the UK. And we did our best at the end of the day, 100%. Because it was a big... Or it was certainly something that came up in the Madeleine McCann case, wasn't it, that they had the cadaver dogs? Yeah. And I remember hearing something in a documentary that statistically, it's like these dogs are never wrong. Yep. So dogs have 220 million olfactory glands. So in your... You as a human, you've got five million.  That's where your... That's what you'll be able to smell, if that makes sense. Whereas dogs is about the size of a bath towel. And technically, if you can narrow down a unique substance in something, then you can teach a dog to find it. At the end of the day, it's taught through repetition and classical conditioning and all that jazz. But if the dog sniffs it and it receives its toy, the dog learns. Because they are clever, they're very, very clever. They learn, if I find that, I get to play with my ball. And that's, I mean, that's the absolute bare bones of it. But it is purely that simple. You teach them a target odor, and then you teach them a search. Then you take them out into all sorts of different environments. They search, they find, and that's it in its sort of purist form. Yeah, they're just doing their thing, aren't they? They love it.  They get paid with a tennis ball.  And it is their, it is their function in life. That's what they have millions of years of evolution for dogs to hunt. And all you're trying to do is harness behaviors and drives that are already in the dog. That's basically, in the wild, if they don't hunt, they don't eat. In my world, if they don't hunt, they don't get to play with a tennis ball. Yeah, it's like giving you a superpower, isn't it? Oh, for them, they are, they're mega. I mean, I've seen, I've seen dogs in the past that have done some things where you sort of look at it and go, how on earth have you pulled that out? But to them, it's probably very simple because of the keenness of their nose, they, they find finding things quite easy, if that makes sense.   So you dump it, you can try and be as smart as you like. But for me as a human being, it doesn't smell, but for the dog, it could, you know, smell like a grizzly bear is hiding in a cupboard. Because it's that, their, their keenness and their sense of smell is phenomenal. Yeah, got you. Blimey. And so let's peel back to the beginning then, Neil, when, when you join the force. Did you have the intent, were you a doggie sort of person or? So I joined 1997. So I was one month before my 21st birthday, physically. I used to drive my parents nuts, because I've always loved working dogs. So I was very lucky. I grew up in Lincolnshire. We had a RAF station nearby that had a, they used to do when they were allowed. They used to do air shows and stuff, and they'd always be the RAF police dog display or the demonstration. And I would always, my parents were very good to me. They would take me. Milden Halls in Norfolk, they used to do a phenomenal air show, the American base. There was again, so I used to, I always wanted to work with dogs. I had it in my mind. I was going to join the military just for some sort of life experience.  So both my parents are quite clever. My mum was a teacher and my dad was a dentist, and they're both clever, if that makes sense. So they sort of tried to steer me towards university.  I studied criminology and law for a little while, but it wasn't really for me. So after two years, I sort of pulled the pin on that, applied to the, to the Met, and they, they accepted me, but I had to wait a good chunk of time. I think when I got them letter saying, well done, you're going to come and join. I think it was, I on 18 months or whatever, I was basically climbing the walls because I wanted to go, if that makes sense.  And then I went out April, 1998. And I got posted to the East End of London, which was for a boy from the country, was a bit of a culture shock, put it that way. Yeah, I bet. And at what point are you, what point are you allowed to put in for the dog section? Then is it that you, you can join the police, which is standard. And if you want to, it's called specializing, I think.   You do that for 10 weeks. Then you, I was fortunate enough, I got posted onto a response team in Plasto in the East End of London. I was the person on the relief with the least amount of service for seven or eight months. So you get to do all the foundation learning of your role, if that makes sense. So, you know, shock lifters come out. That's a job for the person that's sort of new, if that makes sense.   But after those two years, you get certificate that says you're confirmed in your rank, if that makes sense. And then after that, you're in a position where you can, if you choose to apply to go and do the myriad of different options, the CID dog section, these days firearms, what else you can be an observer in the helicopter, you can drive boats, TSG, the mounted branch, you know, I mean, the Mets, the Mets phenomenal for career opportunities.  Yeah, it's like the sort of golden, golden draft, isn't it? Absolutely. And, you know, I've known people in my time that have, after three or four years of being a police officer, they've spent the next 25 specializing from different things. So you get some phenomenally skilled people, if that makes sense. So, you know, that's it's good. I mean, I was 97. I applied to be a dog under in 2003, or 2003 or 2004. So you have to do an application, you have to meet some criteria, if that makes sense. And then, if you get through what's called the paper sift, so someone reads, you have to do scenarios and examples on your form. And if somebody independent reads it, they score it. And then if you get through that, you go and do an interview, which is, at that time was, I think, an inspector, a member of the police staff, and possibly someone else, I can't remember, they sort of put you through your paces for an hour. Then if you get through that, you then get invited to go down to the dog training school, where you do what's called a suitability course, where they assess you for a week on your affinity to work with dogs.  They give you assessments to do, like I was a search handler first, so I was a bomb dog handler first. So you have to, that discipline requires the dog to be worked in a certain way. So they give you an input on that, and then see if you can take on board instruction, see whether you can search a building.  You know, there's a way to lift dogs, you have to pass them over, you have to look at, to the dog's fight, the whole sort of shaboodle, and they're constantly watching you, it's more of a teamwork exercise, if that makes sense.  If you're an eye roller, when someone suggests something and you sort of roll your eyes, they're obviously well-trained instructors pick up on that sort of jazz, so you know, and then if you pass that, they tell you to sort of disappear. Sorry about that, folks. No, you're all good. And then, what was I saying? So suitability, you then get sort of told to disappear, and then, like, I was early term, so early shift, working out in Tottenham, and I got phone calls saying, can you come down the dog school next week to collect your dog, which came as a sort of bolt out of blue, because I wasn't expecting it, excuse me. So then that was me, went down, you get allocated a dog, and then I had to sort of carry on as a normal police officer, but you obviously have the job's dog to look after, so you have to walk it, do all the stuff that then you go on puppy days, so you get a couple of days a month where they take you and the dog, and then they start teaching you stuff, or they start looking, does the dog come back to him when he calls it, does the dog sort of, you know, for me as a search dog handler at the time, is the dog interested in a tennis ball, i.e., the dog's wages, and then they'll give, they'll start giving the dog things to do, the puppy days, because I used to do them as an instructor at the dog school, but that's 15 years down the line, it's more important to sort of train the dog while it's young, and the handler per se can be trained or polished and have the rough edges sort of rubbed off while they're on a basic course if that makes sense, so on the puppy days you're sort of teaching the dog different things, and for search it is the whole, I search I find, basically they'll put tennis balls out, will the dog go off, can you read the dog when it goes into the scent picture of the ball, will it go to source, because they're not just rewarded for, so scent pictures, obviously if you put something out, scent picture, it sort of filters out, right, no one knows how it works, but you put something in the corner of a room and you might look at it and think there, that's a really good hide for a young dog, and then the dog finds it difficult, so you don't know how the training aid or whatever it is, how the scent sort of moves from where it is, so you have to look at, can you read the dog, i.e., right, the dog might turn, it might turn its head really quickly, because that's it's got a whiff of something that it's used to, i.e., or it's something that is part of its repertoire and its brain, so if it does its head turn, that's the handler's job to then keep the trap shut, leave the dog be to work, but you learn that comes with time and experience. Hmm, it's reminding me a bit of when you get issued your weapon in the marines, and it's obviously it's your big day. Yeah, absolutely, if you're not getting the tool for the job. Yeah, absolutely, you're a next bootnick and I'm sure the day when they give you your rifle at Limstone, you're like, wow, this is it now, we're on here, you know, for a dog person, you know, I was literally, I couldn't sleep the night before I got my first dog, because it is, I've waited, when did I join, 2005, so what's that, 1977, 27, 28, sorry, I'm not very good at maths, I was 28 and I'd waited from, I probably dragged my parents around the UK from when I was five, so 23 years in the making, I suppose, and you know, my first dog caused me the occasional headache or two, because he was a belligerent, so and so, but he was a good search dog, if that makes sense, so there, that's the sort of animal that when they cause you problems or they cause you some strokey beard moments or scratchy head moments, they're worth, it's the peaks and troughs of being a dog handler. Is it like in the Marines, you get, like the lad next to you gets his weapon, he's got a brand new SAA, he's straight from the factory, it's still covered in like the grease and stuff, you get handed something that's clearly been used by a load of recruits and they need a wire brush to clean it, so they basically say clean that and make it work. Yeah. I was, I was very lucky, I mean, so in my bit, you can probably conceivably get dogs from two maybe three ways, one, my place, they, we breed dogs, I used to do that until about a year ago, so the police have a breeding program, they have very strong working stock animals and the goal is to breed a police dog, like Springers, you know, you, you have to breed Springer Spaniards, Cockers, Labs, a search, you've have to breed German shepherds for patrol work, some people breed Malinois, you know, so you can get a dog that's been through a breeding program, let's say, you might be fortunate enough to get given your dog when it's eight weeks old and then they basically say, right, you're coming down, like I said, two days a week for the next year, then you go on a course, you might, my dog was a, my Spaniel was a failed gun dog, so he was 10 months old when he came, obviously available for the put, for the police to buy, they assessed him, they knew he had drive, he was relatively obedient and he loved the tennis ball, so they can harness that to make him into a police dog, so that was mine, excuse me, some forces go and they'll go to, they have a relationship with like Battersea Dog Zone, so some people, don't get me wrong, it's not just the current climate, but people will see, there was a film called about a Malinois in the American military called Max, wonderful dog and he was well known in the military, but then people watch that and then they think, you know, what, I'll go and buy myself a Malinois, which is perhaps not the sensibilist of maneuvers for a civilian, because those dogs, they basically, they need work, they need brain engagement and, you know, once the puppies, savaging the children, you know, savaging the children's pyjamas, destroying the furniture, people then go, I can't cope with this, then it goes off to Battersea or the military or wherever, so yeah, I was, I was very lucky, both my spanula, my first patrol dog came from outside breeders. Wow, and I'm guessing the dog lives in Kennels then, does it? No, dog comes home with me, so in the police, you're a dog handler, I missed that off, so once you've done your suitability and your pass, before you can be allocated a dog, you have a home visit, so one of the sergeants comes round and he inspects your home circumstances is probably the easiest way of saying it, so they'll go and look at your garden, if you've got picket fencing that's 18 inches high, then you're probably not going to get a dog because the dog can just troll off and go and do what it wants, so the normal standard is sort of six foot fencing, secure garden, a place for a compound, so my kennel is something like 12 foot, 12 foot from, I can, there's 12 foot that way, six foot that way and six foot that way, that's really not very good for listeners, but 12 foot from left to right, six foot from floor to ground and six foot from front to back and it's got a sleeping area and the like, so you want to be a dog handler, you have to accept that the dog comes home with you, it is without doubt a lifestyle choice, not just not something to do just in work time, you know, you only get out of a dog what you put in, so if you want a good police dog, then it may very well be that you have to go on a day off and go and lay a track for the dog to keep the dog's brain ticking over, if you are a person who just seeks to train your dog in works time, then don't get me wrong, the dog will still be trained to a to a standard, but you know, like I said, the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it and the dog's job is there is to find suspects, find evidence, I suppose everybody really thinks about police dogs chasing and biting people, but that is probably a push 2% of what the dog does in its whole career, you know, you can track for suspects, you search buildings with a patrol dog and the search dogs, they go out, they look for drugs, they look for bombs, they look for digital medias and a new thing, one of the guys I work with has done a digital media project where dogs go and look for SIM cards, you name it, so you're looking at sort of top end crime bits and bobs where people want to keep their dodgy dealings and then they think they can outsmart a dog but they can't. So I'm guessing then Neil, I'm guessing a lot of when an officer gets his dog and they've gone home, it's you're gonna, if you love your job, you're gonna want to try and train it all the time, right? Absolutely, so you, like when you get, if we take patrol dogs, so like I said, I used to sort of breed them and allocate them, so you give someone a their potential police dog when it's eight weeks old and then that dog's training starts at eight weeks, you can do things to start a dog on the concept of tracking, so you basically show the officer and the dog, this is what I want you to do and then you basically give them, for want of a better phrase, some homework, so they have to go and do sent squares for in the, in the, sort of in the middle of the visit, so you they come and see you on a, in January and you teach them stuff or you look at them, you do the dog's environmental exposure and the like, but you teach them the start of tracking and then you say, right, for the next four weeks, I want you to do that twice a week and then they come back, you have a look at whether they've done it, because you'll know, because if the dog walks into the sent square and sort of looks around and goes, what's this about? Then there's a fair clue the handler hasn't done it, whereas if the dog goes in and starts whining and watching when it's being laid in front of it, if the dog starts, if the dog's drive starts to lift and then you know that the handlers put some work in and then you just progress it in, I always get this word wrong, I used to, I used to say incremental, but then I was told it wasn't a word, I think incremental stages, you teach it, there's a, you know, you teach it in steps, so, you know, it's like a, like a Lego plan, if you start at page one and you follow the program, you'll end up with a Lego thing, same with dogs, if you start at training lesson one and everything goes according to plan to a certain extent, take into account the peaks and troughs, but you should end up with, if it's a police bred dog or a dog that's from an outside breeder that's been tested and looked alike, you should end up with a licensed police dog. Hmm. What happens then, go into the other end of the time, the dog's time, when it starts to get ill maybe, or it's not as good as it used to be, do you keep hold of it then or is there some sort of, so you, the dogs work, they have a sort of sanctioned work in life and when the dogs are, I think it's six and a half now, the handler will reapply for their own job, so they have to do another process to be, it's called reselection, so they have to do an application form and they have to do an interview with the chief and he says yay or nay, then they'll be given a puppy, so for the next 18 months while their operational dog is on the sort of wind down to retirement, then they go through the process again, but they do it with a young, so there's a sort of seamless transition, so when they get given a puppy, when the puppy's 15 months old it goes on a basic course, which is 12 or 13 weeks and when that dog finishes, the previous dog will retire, so 95% of police will take their dogs on retirement, so the dog will be retired to the handler and then it's the handler's sort of responsibility then if that makes sense, we're quite lucky in London, some people did some mega work and set up the London retired police dog's trust, so until that was there you didn't really get a massive amount of financial support, I was quite unfortunate, my search dog ended up with cancer in his hips, so he had to be, I had a very, very, very hard decision to make about whether I asked the vet to amputate one of his back legs or whether I put him to sleep and I had that sole searching thing in my head, so sadly he got put to sleep because I wasn't, I think dogs would struggle, all their power comes from their back end, he'd have ended up, he'd have ended up sort of tripod, so that, I had to pay for that, so the sort of x-rays, the assessment, the vet telling me this don't look good and then you have to pay for him to be sort of put to sleep and my first patrol dog, he had cancer in his lungs, so I went to work, he retired early because he had an injury, so he, in one of his jobs, the pair of us went over a six foot fence to a sort of 15 foot drop, which was unpleasant when you're sort of six foot and 18 stone and it wasn't pleasant for the dog either, so he ended up with a leg injury, so they, they retired him early to the point of where I obviously got a new dog or a puppy, but yeah, I was at work when my second dog was at work, I got a phone call from my Mrs saying he don't look right, so we took him to the vet and he had cancer in his lungs, so that was another sort of, not a pleasant time if that makes sense, but these days, thanks to Phil and, I can't think of the lady's name, what's the lady's name? Emma. Phil and Emma have done a lot of sterling work and there's now a trust that if you have problems with your dog and it's a mega expense, you can speak to them and say, can you give me a hand? And they've got some very good trustees and the like and they've got some, they do a lot of charity work, so there's a, there's a facility in place now where it doesn't sort of, or it can, if they, if it meets the criteria, then the handlers can get a little bit help for the dog if that makes sense, because the dog, the dog will have worked for eight years of its life and then it becomes the handle's responsibility, which again is an unwritten rule, if you know what I mean, but it's good that they've got that charity off the ground at the end of the day, because, you know, veterinary bills can be seriously expensive for some, just to find out that you can, you're going to have to sort of put your dog to sleep. Yeah, I think a lot of people will be surprised at that, Neil, that you have to pay for it yourself, is that, what's the philosophy behind that? That, it's always been, it's always been the way, you want to be a dog handle, like I said, it's a lifestyle choice, don't get me wrong, I'm far from being critical, I took my, I took both my dogs on and I knew, I knew the ramifications and I went into it, eyes open fully and I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have had it any other way, those dogs were mine, you know, I brought them up, they worked for me, well, my patrol dog got me out of a couple of sticky situations, so I overdog some loyalty at the end of the day, so, and these charities are becoming more and more the norm, it took the two guys in London a long time to get it off the ground, we were talking about with a guy, Bish, that I used to work with, we were talking about, or it was up in conversation, you know, 10 years ago and I think it takes a lot of time, effort and work to get it off the ground, but it's becoming more prevalent, a lot of the county forces have them now, so, and it's an important thing for the dogs to get some semblance of support because they do work, they do work very hard for what they do to the end of the day. Hmm, do you ever think, I worked in a salmon factory, right, up in Norway, I chopped salmon for nine months and there's bits of salmon going everywhere, the skin, the bones is all, you know, off to one side, well, obviously, all that gets sold to, at the minimum, I'm going to say, like, fish food companies, right, a lot of it probably gets recycled and fed back to the salmon, it's not a pretty industry, but you've got all these factory farmed animals, whether they're salmon or cows or lamb or whatever it might be, and of course they're full of chemicals and steroids and antibiotics, and then all this waste from the, you know, human food chain is then put into pet food, I'm going to guess, right, so a lifetime of an animal eating that kind of food, it's not surprising that they get, don't get me wrong, I mean, the dogs get very well looked after, they get all their veterinary bills are squared away, they get inoculated, they get the very, very, very best of care to the point where, you know, like that, yet they are exceptionally well looked after, the food they get, there's a, the forces I'm sure have, like London does, you have a contract for a food manufacturer and it goes through a process of assessment and they do get exceptionally well looked after, you know, it's not done on a thread budget, if that makes sense, it's done, they do get a phenomenal amount of care, and quite rightly so, that they work hard, you know, there's police dogs out, I'm sure, all over the UK, they're certainly doing it in London, where they're doing their job, they're protecting people, they're stopping people from thieving from people's houses, they're dealing with the myriad of options of crime, and it does go, people inside the job know about it, but the public don't necessarily, but you know, there's a lot of dogs and a lot of handlers doing exceptional work for the service and for their, yeah, for the public basically. Mm, yeah, got you. And when you're putting your puppy, so to speak, in with the older dog, I'm guessing the puppy's learning skills from it. Yeah, so you sort of bring your, you have your old dog at home, you go and get your new one, the probably the best method of the introduction is somewhere outside, outside of the house, outside of the garden, the garden per se is the older dog's domain, so rather than bowl in there with a complete stranger and say, well, you know, is your new mate, deal with that, at times that can go bandy. So you sort of take him, you know, a public park, maybe both dogs on the lead, the pup don't know that it's new, and it don't know what the old dog is. So the pup will be sociable, you just have to watch that the old dog doesn't react adversely and give it, once the introduction's done, as long as there's no adverse behavior from the older dog, then you sort of transition them living into the kennel outside, and then they become best mates at the end of the day. The pup will bother the older dog, because the pup does because it's young and daft and doesn't know, and the older dogs tend to be they tend to be very tolerant of the youngster, and then like my, I did my retiring patrol dog, GP dog, he then came to live inside when he retired because, you know, he had an injury and I wanted it to be warm and sort of where I could keep an eye on him at night time and the like, so he became a sofa dog, and then the young whipper snapper lived outside, and that was then his residence, if that makes sense. Do any officers or anyone for that matter go private with this sort of enterprise? With regards to what? Well, when you've learnt how to train a dog, you know how to handle it. Is there like a commodity in Siby Street that you can? The police have exceptionally high standards for their dogs, and that in turn can transition to the private sector.  So then you can go, you know, like you could work for a security company, security companies have dog sections, don't they? So you could work as the trainer instructor in that. Some people retire as a police officer, and they have roles where they come back as a civilian or a member of police staff. So they retire Friday, Mr Smith, or sorry, P.C. Smith, and then they'll come back in after a little bit of time off, and they'll be Mr Smith, but they carry on because their qualifications don't lapse. As long as you keep training dogs in the area that you're capable of instructing in, then your sort of qualification will remain current. Does that make sense?  So you get a ticket that says you've been assessed, you can train police dogs, and then that has to, you have to keep your feet in the paddling pool in order to keep your ticket valid. Yeah, I was wondering if there's any kind of demand, a silly example, you know, my wife's lost her wedding ring on the beach. Could the dog? So I personally, I'd done that once. I was out walking my first dog, and I could see a woman up ahead who I think she lived like three, four doors down. And she's obviously looking for something. So I was like, okay, I have the dog with me. So I said, right, what's the problem? She said, I've lost my house keys. I was like, right, okay. So you go, it then turns into, you turn into a policeman then.  What route have you taken is the critical point? And so then I basically said, right, you know, where did you stop running? So she points, she's obviously started to backtrack, if that makes sense. Yeah. So I've sort of said, look, go home and give me 20 minutes. So I've gone back. I've started where she identified and I've worked the route backwards and I found it. I mean, the dog found her house keys and that, you know, don't get me wrong, awesome for her because she didn't have to wait for her other half to come home and let her in, you know, they didn't have to change the locks. But for me, like live training, there's a bit of difficulty out for my dog of a scent that he's not used to.  That's a great little story. So can we talk about some incidents then as your career progressed, your kind of fines and your success? So I was quite lucky. So obviously I worked the East End of London. I was on a team of fantastic people. They looked after me.  And then courses become available in the police. So you don't just, being a relief officer is the core of policing. But you can do other things. You can be a public order officer.  Sort of like the riot squad, shall we say? The big helmet, the shield, that's the absolute, like, full tilt, something's gone wrong. I've got to put all this kit on and there's going to be, there's problems somewhere. So you can do a course to do that. There's a search officer's course, where the military or a combined military police training team teach you sort of like proper pucker top tier searching of premises. So I'm talking fingertip searching, starting at the doorway, working around the room in a clockwise fashion, looking for hides and the like. It all stems from sort of organizational learning from Ulster. So I was quite fortunate. I did that. One of my best fines was we were doing an inquiry, doing a search of a flat. And I'll never forget it. I was talking about it the other day. I remember it like it was yesterday. There's, it's a small flat. And in the back of a wardrobe, there's a wood panel. And for some reason, some things telling me, I want to have a look behind that wood panel. I don't know what it was. But if you're going to search somewhere, you should search it properly.   So we take the wood panel off. And behind it, we found a receipt to a pawn shop for the victim's electric guitar. And it was the only thing that pinned the suspect to the offence he'd committed. And I'll never forget the superintendent for the inquiry came in and he almost skipped through the door. Because I think they'd potentially sort of got to a point where they knew who was in play, but I don't know whether they could entirely prove it, if that makes sense. So that's, yeah, that's, that's a good one. That's a proper sort of a critical bit of evidence for an inquiry, if that makes sense from a relief police officer's point of view. How is it then at the airports? You often see an officer with a dog. For example, I mean, in New Zealand, they're very hot on bringing foreign food into their country for the sort of germ control and that sort of stuff. So we used to deploy search dogs, so dogs that find explosives, because that's one of the things that happens if that makes a terrorist trend to an extent, isn't it? So you do for the police in London, you have certain jobs to do. You know, we used to have to do specific searches to make sure certain parts of the airport were safe, not only for the staff, but for the public. Then if when there's a, what's it called, when you go as a passenger, there's a search regime, isn't there?  There's systems in place where the dogs will turn up. You might get asked, run your dog over that bag, tell us what's in it or, you know, tell us if your dog's found anything in it. And then the EOD would go down and do their thing. You do VCPs, so you do car. They set up a vehicle checkpoint. They identify cars that they're interested in, be it, you know, these and these number plate readery things, they'll flag up cars that are of interest, shall we say, so they might get pulled in. You do a search around that. And don't get me wrong, you're not just talking like I did. You might, you'd have a drugs dog and a firearms recovery dog there as well. So you're, it's a multifaceted search to basically put off people that want to do harm to people. They put it, they try to put them off. It's a visible, visible presence that people sort of look. And when they start to think about doing things that they shouldn't, then they sort of turn up and they go, all right, they are here, they are looking, they are watching. One thing I learned on my search course was the age old thing. I think, I think the IRA said it many moons ago where they said the police and the military have got to be on point every time. We've only got to be fortunate once to sort of commit an atrocity, if that makes sense, which that, that boat don't float. So you've got to do your, the police have got to do their thing, do their very best to make sure these sort of things don't, or they've got to try their best to make sure they don't get to do what they want to. Have you got any other examples, say Neil, finding substances or? So the best bit for a search for a bomb dog handle, you don't really want to find something. So that's the, that's that. You know, I did some good searches. I've been fortunate enough to be on the inside of Buckingham Palace. You go and do parts of Parliament on a daily basis.  It's your job there. You're there. The police obviously have done their bit. They might chase someone. They've done whatever. I did one where we got sent out to Bedfordshire. So a lady had disappeared. So we did a victim recovery search. And we had, she'd been seen on, she'd been seen somewhere on CCTV. And between that and the next point where she'd been picked up, or she hadn't been picked up, do you know what I mean? She'd obviously disappeared somewhere. So we get given a load of search parameters and we were in a park and I was walking back.  So I was walking back to this area. My dog was loose. I had good control of my dog. So he was loose just trolling around. And then all of a sudden he goes off and on the middle of a pavement going through a park, he starts searching. I watch his tail. So his tail starts to go, which is again about reading the dog. I start to think, well, what's going on over there? And then he indicates, so this is a loose search. He's not been tasked to do anything really. So it goes to show he was all right. He was pretty good at what he did. So I go up and I have a look and there's six or seven spots of blood on the ground, dried blood. Now I'll grant you, it wasn't linked to the offence that we were dealing with, if that makes sense. However, it goes to show the level of capability in a dog. We were in probably a 30 acre park, if you know what I mean, just walking back to go for a cup of tea because he'd already been working for an hour and a half. And then he goes off and he indicates full blown on five or six spots of blood on the floor.  I remember I did one where there was a, I think it was an aggravated burglary. And I ended up probably doing 40 or 50 back gardens, ending up going in different directions. You know, somebody would sort of pop up, are you looking for someone? Yeah. And then they'd sort of point that you might want to go that way. And it turns out, I think it took me about an hour and a half. But in turn, we turned up the actual suspect from the offence. So he'd obviously thought he'd discarded property. It was a bit like the Hansel and Gretel, the trail of breadcrumbs. We start at one point, four or five fences, find a broken fence, remember the public goes, Oh, you might want to go down there, do a few more. And then we find a jumper, which is obviously his.  And then so yeah, that was, that's a good one. There's lots to be honest, Chris. I was very fortunate. My dogs were, were pretty good. I mean, my first patrol dog did, he did firearms recovery as well. So I remember doing a premises search in somewhere like somewhere in the East End of London. And it was for a young, a real youngster. And he'd been given something to look after by sort of older people who were sort of trying to cajole him into the wrong ways of life. And the dog gave a full blown indication. I'm sort of looking at him going, you actually sure? Because he's on over wood flooring. So I said to the detectives, just have a look under there. He's telling me there's something under there. So we go under their white cloth. And there's two handguns under the, there's two handguns hidden under his bedroom floor. Yeah, there's lots to be honest. I've had good operational tracks to suspects.  So the police routinely they'll chase them, but then they get to the, you know, people, people that want to get away from the police. So most of the time do. So I remember it was wormwood scrubs, it was where the prison, literally 15 foot from the wall of the prison. This inspector was obviously hanging out because he'd had to run after the, after the geyser and he'd stopped. And he said, I haven't been down there. He's gone down there. So obviously tracking on us on. And the suspect maybe wasn't the cleverest individual I've ever encountered. So we went basically 75 yards, the first clumper trees, and I'm talking probably eight trees. We're going down the pavement in a straight line. The dog goes, we're going this way into the clump of trees, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof. So there was the second suspect. They're quite rare. You don't really get a lot of, not in London, you don't get a lot of tracks to suspects. People normally, you know, it's a residential street. People run away from the police if they don't try and hunker down and hide somewhere, hoping that the dogs don't, or the dogs or the helicopter don't turn up. You know, they sometimes will get away unless the police are very fortunate. I had one where I don't wish to be disparaging to my colleagues in the air support unit, but they cleared an area, told the local police that there was nobody there. And my dog found the geyser in about 30 seconds. He was very, very well hidden. So that, you know, the helicopters up, circling, they've got thermal imaging and stuff, but if it's deep, deep, deep thick undergrowth, then that's where you have to do interdepartmental working. They might say, yeah, it's clear from our point of view, but if it's deep brambles and the like, then the thermal imaging won't get through it. So I was fortunate enough that I think, I think he was wanted for some sort of sexual offence, and he was well hidden, literally lying up against a fence panel with probably eight, nine foot of brambles on top of him.  So it doesn't really bother the dog. So yeah, that's another one. There's lots, Chris, to be honest. What's it like then? If you've got a dog that's trained to sniff out substances, and you're walking down the street of it, and someone goes by and they've just smoked a joint. So for a normal search dog, that would probably not be a massive issue at the bottom. So dogs that are passive scanning dogs.  Yeah, I mean, the dogs will probably show you levels of interest, and then the officers have got a decision to make that they want to intervene, perhaps in their own, perhaps where they live, if that makes sense, that you've got, you know, yeah, I mean, the dogs will show interest, if that makes sense. I had one a long time ago where I could obviously hear a scrambler bike hooning around in a park, and nine times out of 10, they probably don't belong to the person that rides them.  Yeah, don't walk it down Electric Avenue, you'll never get anywhere if you live there. Yeah, I mean, you know, the dog goes to work, it works for eight hours in and out of the back of the van doing very indifferent things, and then they're like me, I need to go home to relax and have a sleep before I go back and do it again, or when I used to do it, and the dog's the same, they go in the compound, if they've had a busy day at work, you won't see them for three or four hours, because they go in literally curl up, and they're like that, right, I'll see you later, we'll have a walk about 7pm, but other than that don't disturb me, so they do need, they do need time off to sort of unwind and just be a dog basically, sniff leaves, do stuff they shouldn't, and just generally just be a dog. And Neil, we were going to talk about, you mentioned the Africa poaching connection. Oh yeah, so I've got a couple of friends of mine are involved in a thing called, I'm going to have to look it up again, that's not very good for a recording, I do apologise. Oh that's okay. Dogs for wildlife. So it's a dog initiative whereby people in this country help with the training and supply of some dogs that work on the animal conservation parks. It's run by a good friend of mine and, or a couple of good friends of mine, so it's just something that people should, if there's any scope, just have a look at it. Dogs for wildlife, it's called in there, obviously doing a lot of good work for anti-poaching in Africa, whereby obviously some of these magnificent animals in Africa are on the verge of extinction, and so they do a lot of good stuff with regards to trying to stop the poachers and the like. Yeah, and that's about it really, sorry that's not the world's best plug in the world. No, I'm just thinking, I think the poachers use dogs as well, don't they? As far as I know, I think the whole anti-poaching element is, it's sort of the same as, it's not a police dog, but it's the same, it'll track, they'll get to a point where they identify some poachers might be cutting about, so they'll then put the dog out to track, the dog will potentially get them to the point of where the poachers are. I think the dogs are trained to defend the park rangers, because they do get in, I think they get in a few bumps with the poachers whereby there's a bit of gunfire and the like, because they're quite keen not to get caught. So yeah, I mean it's basically the same sort of thing that I'm used to knocking around doing, but it's another sort of element of how good dogs can be and the different roles, I suppose, on the planet that they can have. And yeah, I think it's just an important thing to try and look after some of these animals, they're only drifting around in their own habitat and then somebody turns up and tries to see them off because they've got something that's valuable to somebody else, if that makes sense, it's not, you know, it's, and I think it would be nice to try and get some of these, some of these rare animals back to where they should be at the end of the day. Yeah, definitely. I heard something the other day that they used to chop the horns off the rhinos, didn't they? With a chainsaw, right? Well, so a lot of the, for some of the rarer animals, I think the park rangers now dehorn the animals, so they'll go out, knock it out, and they take the, they take the valuable element is the horn, so they take the horn off of the rhino so that the poachers will go, it's worthless and they'll potentially, or ideally, leave it be. But again, that's, that's a bit harsh for the rhino if you catch my drift. Well, what I heard Neil, is now the poachers will kill it anyway because, I did have that thought, I think they do because they then don't want to be, what did I want to tell you today?   But I don't think that's, I don't think he's going away any time soon if you catch my drift. So if the, you know, if the lads, for the dogs for wildlife, and don't get me wrong, they're not the only one. But you know, a little bit of, a little bit of support if there is, and to try and sort of alleviate some of the issues that they're working towards. Just another silly question, but let's just say back in my party days, I knew a guy. And asking for a friend, yeah. Well, it was actually my, okay, what I'm saying is, not talking about me here, this was back to a friend of mine, but he used to sell certain party prescriptions. And he always had a pot of pepper on his stairs. Okay, absolutely worthless. If you said to him, what's the pepper for?  Absolutely worthless. It's the dog's noses are that clever that it basically smells like, well, that's pepper, but underneath it's 10 grams of cocaine. Wow. Yes. People hide stuff in coffee, don't they? Absolutely. Yeah. The sense available, the dog will find it. Yeah. I won't be doing that anymore then. No, you need to get rid of your coffee stash. Yeah. I'd better call Columbia and tell them we change the plan. Yeah, call your friends in Bogota and tell them to wind it in a bit. Yes. And what's, do you have any view of this, like, giving medals to dogs? Like, that's become a thing now, hasn't it? And, well, so the, the dicking medal is the animal Victoria Cross. That's been knocking around for a long time, I think. The dog that's been in the press recently, the, the Shakey's dog, what's his name? Kuno. I think he's the 72nd recipient, I believe. Well deserved. Genuinely 100% well deserved. I mean, that's a, that's a proper, proper dog that proper, proper frog dog. And there's a few guys that I work with that have got the dicking medal. So the terrorist attacks in London Bridge, obviously the search dogs turned up. They did a load of good work with the initial aftermath of that. So they were recognized for their work for, they got, they've got the dicking medals in actually, I think the actual medals given to the dog. So the handler doesn't get it. It's actually given to the animal. So we've got at work, we've got three or four on a, on, on a wall in our dog school. So that's the most recent one. A guy I used to work with, he got the dicking medal for the 7th of July attack. He went on, he searched the bus at Tavistog Square and he went down and I believe he was one of the first people onto the tube. So he cleared the tube. Again, very, very well deserved.  So for a dog handler, he, he did that, turned up at a call, terrorist incident, ongoing, the like, he searched, he made it clear for the first responders, right, you can now go and do your job, go and try and, you know, save people, treat people. I do think they're, the dogs need to be recognised for what they do, 100%. Like Kuno, yeah, I mean, he saved, he saved a lot of lads that day, 100%. So he deserves it.  Custom built prosthetic legs, because you've got there, I guess, whoever the MOD have basically said, yeah, look after him, because he's done something right. You know what I mean? And again, he's got, he's getting, he's got that so that he doesn't have to not be about.  So a guy that makes, they make the little sort of like the wheeled contraptions that you strap the dog in. Yeah. So he was the guy, I mean, the guy's a friend of mine, he was quite fortunate, the company that make them donated the contraption so that his dog's back end got strapped in it, a front end still, front leg still works, so she was still able to stay, stay about and go for a walk, albeit slower. And the company were very good. They, they made a sort of charitable donation to him and the dog, so that the dog didn't have to be put to sleep because her quality of life went down. But with that contraption, she was able to have another year, 18 months. So, yeah, fair play. But yeah, I mean, sorry, I'm waffling a bit. Going back to the medals, I think the dogs need some form of recognition. It obviously goes through a process where people look at it and they go, yes, we'll award it. But it's not, I don't think they're thrown around willy-nilly if you catch my drift. So, you know, 99% to 100% of the time, the dogs will have done something pretty special in order to be even considered for it. Yeah, got ya. It makes me chuckle thinking of come Remembrance Day, dog, dog puts his bed along and goes down the pub. Yeah, well, yeah, goes down, goes down the pub for a pint of stouts in a bowl. So, Neil, are you at liberty to say what, what, what does your career hold, what you're up to now? I still, I'm a permanent dog training instructor. What year were you in, 2021? Five and a half odd years ago, I was approached by the dog training establishment. They wanted me to consider applying for a job that was coming up. So, I now train dogs permanently. At the minute, I work on a confidential project teaching some dogs to do some Gucci stuff, some Gucci blokes. So, that's what it holds. I've got 20, only three year service. So, I've still got some time to do. And yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate to do what I do. I get to train dogs. And I'm fortunate that, you know, some of the handlers keep in touch. So, if I train a dog, the handlers occasionally keep in touch and they'll go, oh, by the way, you know, X had a magnificent find the other night, they had a really good, they turfed a suspect out that they thought was long gone. So, I'm, I'm quite fortunate that I get to have a very small say in, you know, in police dogs really. And, you know, that's, that's what I, that's what I sort of do it for. And you like, you know, the occasional text message at three o'clock in the morning saying, oh, I've just had this mega job and I've done X is, is that's, that's good enough for me. Brilliant. Well, Neil, thanks ever so much for coming to chat to us. Thank you for your service to this country on behalf of the. There's a lot more people on the face of God's green earth that have done a lot more for the country than I have. And I'm, I'm, I'm quite fortunate that I've got a good job where I get to do what I like. And I wouldn't give it up for the world. But I mean, genuinely, Chris, thanks very much for letting me come on. You can try and edit it and not make me look too much of a tool that'd be good. Mate, you've been perfect. Absolutely perfect. And fair play to you for your 200 mile yomp. That's what cars are for, mate, didn't really 100%. That's what cars are for. Yes, I am going to factor that in next time. Don't invite me because I'd get 20 yards and I'd be like, no, this is not working, Chris, we're not doing this. Yeah, it did all end up a bit random. I will. But yes, thank you ever so much. If people wanted to get hold of you for any kind of like consultation. Oh, mate, I'm not, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't, I don't really do that sort of thing. I do breed dogs. So I breed Malinois and Dutch herders outside of work. So I've sort of got a little registered business interest with me and a guy who's like, he's like my brother from another mother, bless him, little JK. He's a mega bloke.  I've got all the time in the world for him. Me and him did a couple of dogs for, you know, we've bred some litters that went into service with the military and the police. But that sort of occupies my free time. I'm on Twitter. I think I'm on Twitter with at Roscoe the dog, but obviously it's sort of a private thing, not really job related. And I'm on that. You pick me up on that LinkedIn thing. Yeah, I only mentioned it all because, I mean, for any reason, there might be some that goes, I want, I need to ask this guy a question. I mean, that that LinkedIn thing, I think, and Twitter, I'm on Instagram. Let me see what the thing on Instagram is. Sorry, I'm doing it again, where we're in the middle of a recording. Oh, it's fine. All right. My Instagram is Vonrader, V-O-N-R-A-I-D-E-R. And that's that's sort of my dog, kennel name for my dog breeding, if that makes sense. And so I'm on Instagram. I don't really post a lot. I use it more for seeing what's going on. And in fact, I've only, that's not very good. I've got 16 posts on there, which is not brilliant. Mainly of dogs biting people and the like. But, you know, probably the LinkedIn is the thing to get old of me. If people have a massive year to talk to me, if anything makes sense. Yes, brilliant. Well, thank you again, mate. Just stay on the line so I can thank you properly. Okay, but no problem. And to speak to you. Yes, it's been great. Thank you. Like I say, I get to chat about the stuff that I want to in life. I mean, podcasts are the way forward. Like if you'd have said to me 18 months ago, I'd be talking to you. I've never even met you. But, you know, I feel like we've actually got a connection because we've sat and had a chit chat on a Friday. So yeah, thanks very much for letting me come on. You're more than welcome. And to everybody at home, if you could please like and subscribe so we can do more of this great content. Much love to you all. Look after yourselves.