What do you do when your guide dog loses its sight? You get your faithful companion and helper a guide dog, that’s what:

Edward and Opal.

A Suffolk man was devastated when his faithful guide dog lost his sight — so he got a new dog to act as eyes for both of them.

Edward had given Graham Waspe, 60, six years of loyal service until he had to have both eyes removed after developing inoperable cataracts.

Mr Waspe, from Stowmarket, couldn’t bear to be parted from his canine companion — so he got a new guide dog to look after them both.

[Via Guide dog gets a guide dog | Orange UK.]

[Photo from original article.]

Robert sent me these links to some great videos:

Thought you might be able to make use of these videos on the site. They are tracking the progress of Cheshire Police’s new border collie puppy as he becomes a drugs detection dog.

Meet Cheshire Police’s newest recruit: Ziggy the border collie. Ziggy is nine weeks old. When he grows up he wants to be a drugs detection dog, but at the moment he is far too busy being a puppy.

In the second part of our series following our new border collie puppy, Ziggy is now 16 weeks old and is getting to grips with basic commands and searching for his toy.

In part three of the series following our new border collie puppy, Ziggy has been creating a bit of the stir in the media. He has appeared on Granada Reports and in several newspapers since we last caught up with him. But his feet are being kept firmly on the ground by his friends George and Storm.

More importantly, Ziggy is progressing very well. So well, in fact, that he is now scheduled to go on his drugs detection course this May [2010] when he will still be just nine months old. That is three months earlier than PC Alison Bowkett, his handler, had initially expected.

See if you can spot the moment Ziggy’s enthusiastic sniffing around cause him to knock into the camera tripod!

Remember to subscribe to the Cheshire Police YouTube Channel for more updates on Ziggy.

Helsbury Park in Camelford, Cornwall, UK, really welcomes dogs, and business is good:

Helsbury Park.

A holiday park owner in Cornwall [UK] has claimed being “dog friendly” has helped his business during the recession.

Dave Wilson, who runs Helsbury Park in Camelford, said dog owners have provided a large customer base.

The park has recently won a Kennel Club Open to Dogs award, coming top in the Somewhere to Holiday category. …

Helsbury Park was praised by visitors for providing throws and sofa covers for dogs as well as waste bags, doggy treats and portable drinks carriers.

[Via : BBC News - Dog-friendly status helps business.]

Dog resting. Photo by Miraz.

Meanwhile, the UK Kennel Club reports:

According to research conducted by the Kennel Club businesses are claiming that the key to business success comes in the unusual shape of our four-legged friends. A staggering four out of five businesses claim that their dog friendly policy has helped them to draw in more customers in difficult financial times.¹

The Kennel Club has also found that 95 percent of people think more businesses and locations should be Open for Dogs, and that dogs improve the atmosphere of a place², and 77 percent think that dogs help to reduce stress.³

[Via : Kennel Club Announces Open for Dogs Winners 2009 - The Kennel Club.]

The Northumbria Police in the UK have set up a PuppyCam:

The nine puppies were born on Thursday October 15th [2009]. There are five boys and four girls.

It was evening when I checked and I didn’t see the puppies unfortunately.

German shepherd.

The BBC News fills in a bit more information:

The German shepherds were born to police dog Heidi last week and the five-year-old is now retiring after providing the force with three litters.

Members of the public are able to watch the dogs, five male and four female, during their first few weeks before embarking on training.

[Via : BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne | Police dogs go live on 'puppycam'.]

Photo credit: Andres Luberg.

One thing some dogs can do enormously better than people is to find and follow a scent. This makes them ideal in search and rescue, especially if they have a high prey-drive. But it’s not easy to qualify:

To get her mountain rescue tag and search dog coat, [Jody the border collie] completed four successful searches over two days on the steep slopes of the Mourne Mountains in County Down, under the watchful eyes of two independent assessors from the National Search And Rescue Dog Association in England.

John [Binns] trained the dog to search for humans using her highly sensitive nose and under his direction she can quickly cover an area, honing in on an injured person. When she finds one she is rewarded by being allowed to play with her favourite squeaky toy.

“She has the capability of covering large areas of ground in all conditions using her extremely sensitive nose to locate casualties, a task that would require a large number of people,” John said.

[Via : BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Abandoned dog becomes rescue asset.]

While there’s a growing trend to specifically breeding dogs for this kind of work, a twist in Jody’s tale is that she was left at an animal shelter. The staff there suggested her to Binns.