Fire dogs appearing at Pet Show

Echo with his owner and handler Mike Dewar

Fire dogs from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS), with their handler Mike Dewar, will be at the Manchester Pet Show on the 7/8 September at Manchester’s EventCity.

Echo a Yellow Labrador, was part of a team awarded a Pride of Britain Award in 2010 for work in Haiti with GMFRS, and he will be joined by Ace, his replacement at GMFRS as a search and rescue dog, and also Cracker, who helps to tackle arson by detecting accelerants such as petrol, paraffin and white spirit.

The Labradors’ sense of smell is 200 times more sensitive than that of a human and this allows them to sniff out whether fires have been started with accelerants helping to speed up lengthy investigations.

The dogs’ handler, Mike Dewar, has worked at GMFRS for over 19 years and will be by Echo, Ace and Cracker’s side on both Saturday and Sunday answering questions about how the dogs work and promoting important fire safety messages to children and families that visit the show.

There will be more than 100 exhibitors in four different animal discovery zones – Discover Cats, Discover Dogs, Discover Small Furries and Discover Feathers & Scales.

The Kennel Club, the UK’s largest organisation dedicated to the welfare of dogs, will also have more than 20 different breeds of pedigree dogs on show and has announced plans to host the North West regional heat of Scruffts live at the Show.