Section C
The Dog with the Golden Nose
Jiggs, the chimpanzee that starred in over fifteen Tarzan films in the 1930s, was paid thousands of pounds. The owner of Bart, an Alaskan brown bear, was paid a million dollars for letting Bart appear in the film The Edge. A racehorse called Rock of Gibraltar is worth an estimated ￡ 100 million. Now there is Keela, a dog doing a great job and getting well remunerated for it.
Keela, a 16-month-old springer spaniel, has become such an asset to the South Yorkshire Police that she now earns more than the chief constable.
Her sense of smell, so keen that she can find traces of blood on weapons that have been scrubbed ‘clean’, has her so much in demand by forces up and down the country that she is hired out at ￡ 530 a day, plus expenses.
Thought to be the only one of her kind, this ‘crime scene dog’ earns nearly ￡ 200, 000 a year. Her daily rate, ten times that of ordinary police dogs, pay her more than the chief constable, Meredydd Hughes, who picks up ￡ 129, 963.
Keela’s considerable talent in uncovering minute pieces of evidence that can later be confirmed by forensic tests has put her in the forefront of detective work across Britain. She was drafted in to help after the stabbing of the young mother, Abigail Witchalls, in Surrey, and has been involved in high-profile cases across 17 forces, from Devon and Cornwall to Strathclyde.
PC John Ellis, her handler, said that the police send for Keela when the scenes of crime squads fail to find what they are looking for. ‘She can detect minute quantities of blood that cannot be seen with the human eye,’ he said. ‘She is used at scenes where someone has cleaned up. If blood has seeped into the tiles behind a bath which contained a body, she can find it. '
The spaniel can sniff out blood in clothes’ after they have been washed repeatedly in biological washing powder, and can detect microscopic amounts on weapons that have been scrubbed and washed.
When faced with a ‘clean’ crime scene, Mr Ellis and PC Martin Grimes, Keela’s other handler , will first send in Frankie, a border collie, and Eddie, another Springer spaniel, to pick up any general scent. Then they wheel in the big gun.
‘We take Keela in and she will find the minutest traces of blood,’ Mr Ellis said. ‘It’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack any more. The other two dogs will find the haystack and Keela will find the needle.
While the other dogs bark, Keela has been trained to freeze and pinpoint the area with her nose.
Mr Ellis said Keela’s ‘perfect temperament’ and enthusiasm make her a great asset. ‘We thought we would get one or two deployments a year, but things have just snowballed. Obviously when we are called in by other forces they are charged a fee and it’s quite funny to think she earns more than the chief constable,’ commented Mr Ellis.
Mr Hughes says there are no hard feelings. ‘Keela’s training gives the force an edge when it comes to forensic investigation which we should recognize and use more often.
Mr Ellis and Mr Grimes came up with a special training regime to focus on Keela’s remarkable skills. It has proved so successful that the FBI has inquired about it. ‘The FBI is very interested in how we work because they don’t have this sort of facility in-house and they are looking at setting up their own u-nit,’ Mr Ellis said.
Paul Puffell, of K9 Solutions, a security firm specializing in dog units, said he was amazed at Keela’s abilities. ‘I’ve been working in this business for 25 years and I’ve never heard anything like it,’ he said.
Summary
Keela may not be a(n)【71】______like other highly, paid animals, but she is similarly in demand. She has an incredible【72】______she can detect blood on clothes, even after they have been washed in washing powder. This makes her especially useful at a (n)【73】______. Once her handlers realized she was so exceptional, they invented a special【74】______for her. She now makes more money than the【75】______of the police force!
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