Jim is not just an intelligent dog but a beautiful-looking K9 that has become a bit of a local media star.
Westward Shipping News was granted a special interview to meet him and his owner Sally to discover what makes this Plymouth dog unique.
Jim has been trained to find the odour of the integration between human skin and steel on a knife blade. It’s the smell of a knife in contact with human skin, and Jim has been trained to sniff out and detect knives by former military policeman and dog handler in the RAF, Andy Lightfoot.
A joint research project with a forensics university in the United States has synthesised a liquid that dog trainers can use to train and detect knives, said Mr Lightfoot.
The process of getting Jim to recognise the smell is similar to working with other sniffer dogs, said Sally.
“Jim is handled by Andy a few days a week, and although dogs are not currently being used by local police forces for this type of specialised training, there are many advantages to using dogs like Jim to curb knife crime,” said Sally.
Jim didn’t mind having his photos taken, and before we ended the interview, he started to complain, wanting his special ball and knowing exactly where to find it – in Sally’s coat pocket.
