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PRO DOGS AWARD FOR DEVOTION TO DUTY 2003
The PRO DOG of the YEAR 27th Annual Awards 2003 GEMMA & MAX are awarded the Gold Medals for devotion to
duty. Both Border Collies work for Leicestershire Fire & Rescue Service. Their normal duties involve searches for lost, missing and injured persons. They are on call as members of the UK Fire Service Search & Rescue Team to assist in natural disasters and terrorist incidents that take place aboard and in the UK. Gemma has been previously been involved in searching for survivors in two major earthquakes Turkey (1999) & Algeria (2003). Max also attended the Algerian earthquake this year. Both dogs in their deployments worked in appalling environmental conditions, in extreme heat and difficult terrain. They worked with exemplary devotion search after search, without objection or hesitation. Both dogs had to complete 6 months quarantine on returning back to the UK, as Algeria is not part of the Passport for Pets. Silver Medal Winners for devotion to duty. CHASE Chase is an English springer spaniel trained as a Customs Detector Dog operating at Dover and South-East ports, and at Coquelles in France. His speciality is class A & B drugs, cigarettes and tobacco. During his career to date he has detected £20 and £30 million pounds of illicit drugs. His operations are Ramsgate and Dover have removed more than half a million deals on the streets of Britain. His background is not known - all dogs are trained by the Defence Animal Centre at Melton Mowbray and many dogs are donated - and he was probably a "second chancer who made good" He is one of the top performing dogs in the customs Department and his prize of £250.00 in the Golden Bonio Awards in March 2003 was donated to Hearing Dogs for the Deaf. REBEL & ROCKY Rebel is a Border Collie working in the Prison Service and is based at Devizes, Wiltshire. Rocky is a Labrador. They detect many sorts of illegal substances within penal detection centres and Rebel is the only dog in the prison service to be trained specifically to detect distilled alcohol which has resulted in injury, disfigurement and permanent maiming of prison staff by prisoners "high on the brew". He has made a huge impact on this aspect of prison work and rated highly (4th) on an internal trail in June. In addition to his alcohol detection, his record over the past two years include heroin, cannabis ecstasy and amphetamines together with illegal mobiles and mail, contraband, pornography, weapons and evidence of terrorism. Rocky has detected in excess of 26,000 0f drugs entering a prison and as a result positive drug tests on inmates have been reduced from 32.8% to 9%.
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