All the recent News from Neil his Dogs
September 2020
Neil achieved his PhD from Queen's University Belfast, School of Medical, Health and Life Sciences, (Biological Sciences Department), for his research into the untrained response of family pet dogs to the onset of epileptic seizure. He has since been appointed as a Visiting Scholar to Queen's University Belfast, to conduct further research in this area.
May 2014
Neil is shortly to begin a PhD entitled "A study into the Untrained Responses of some dogs, to the Early Onset of Hypoglycaemia and Hyperglycaemia in Type 1 Diabetics and to the Early Onset of Epileptic Seizures in Chronic Epileptic Patients.
February 2014
Drowned Victim Search Dog Fern, featured in a BBC 2 television documentary by Chris Packham entitled "Inside the Animal Mind".
September 2013
Neil was invited to give a presentation on the use and deployment of drowned victim search dogs at the " Revenue Customs Canine Conference 2013".
September 2011
Neil's book, called 'Search Dogs and Me', is currently being profiled on Amazon and will be in the shops from 30th September. It has taken Neil 3 years to write and a further year to have published.
Buy it today on Amazon.co.uk
August 2011
Neil recently qualified his bloodhound cross, Paddy as a novice trailing dog in Scotland under the watchful eye of his two assessors, Tom Middlemas and Iain Nicholson. Tom is the leading Trailing Dog trainer in the UK and Iain, one of his protégés, has had numerous successful finds since he qualified as a trailing dog handler with his own dog Midge.
March 2010
Neil was invited to the Cesa Milan show at the Belfast Odyssey and Dulin O2. Neil was asked to be on his seminar in the Belfast Odyssey last night, 16 March and again this evening at the O2 in Dublin. Neil and Charco was delighted to be invloved. He asked Neil to bring his dog Charco on to the show to talk about his search work in Algeria and in Pakistan. It was a great honour.
2009
Fern was used to assist in a search of Loch Awe for 3 missing fishermen. She located them and they were recovered a couple of days later.
She went on to locate a missing man who had fallen into the River Boyne in February 2013. Search teams had been looking for the man for 3 weeks when Fern was called in to assist. She located the place where he had become wedged in tree roots and divers later recovered the body bringing closure to the family. This is the second body Fern has located in the River Boyne in 2 years.
Fern was again called to assist in the search for a missing person in Camlough Lake outside Newry. She located the lady very quickly and police divers recovered the body from the place indicated.
When added to the find she made of two tragically drowned teenagers in Castlewellan Lake, this brings the total number of finds made by Fern to 8 and only serves to prove the value of training many more of these dogs to bring closure to grieving relatives.
July 2009
Charco is shortlisted for the Hero Dog Award, part of the Dogs Trust Honours 2009.
Neil recently attended a convention for teams involved in search and rescue dog work from, Northern and Central Italy, Slowenia and France. Neil was one of four delegates from the National Search and Rescue Dog Association of the UK and Ireland. The convention was based at Lago Maggiore (Luino)in Northern Italy and was hosted by one of the Italian Search and Rescue Dog groups there. It examined dogs which specialized in searching for survivors in collapsed structures and on mountains.
The dog teams represented were from the Fire Service, Civil defence, Forestry Rangers as well as top class volunteer teams.There were demonstrations from dogs used to rescue people from water.These dogs were also able to pull small pleasure boats to shore when their engines had broken down.
