Wimbledon hero bomb detection dogs Floyd and Brodie had a ball in the line of duty.
While thousands of spectators enjoyed a smashing experience, the sniffer dogs kept their noses to the ground to prevent explosives being smuggled into a venue with their handlers Duncan Rolinson and Kenny Burnett.
The top quality canines are the pride and joy of Stonehaven firm Sirius Security whose nine specialist dogs are available for deployment with their handlers.
Siobhan Mackin, business development manager, said the Labrador and English Springer Spaniel had “the most incredible two weeks working down at Wimbledon”.
She said: “It was such an amazing experience for them all with memories made that will last a lifetime ad we are very proud of them for all their hard work and look forward to searching at more events now that normality is slowly returning.”
“Super-trained family pets’
Increases in emerging sophisticated threats are accelerating the demand for highly capable explosives detection and Floyd and Brodie were hand-picked by Sirius Security to join the ranks.
Mrs Mackin, 35, said: “They live with their handlers but they’re just family pets. The company director has a list of breeder contacts that he would go to which specialise in this kind of breeding.
“The dogs are very much family pets and we have drug dogs as well which are also all pets as well as working dogs. The handlers keep them at home and have them as their family pets.”
She went on: “We have small amounts of explosives and drugs which we used for training purposes and this is continuous training.”
‘In good hands’
The company was founded in 2001 by Mrs Mackin’s grandfather, the former Grampian Police sergeant dog handler Brian Welsh.
She added: “We do work for oil companies that are searching for drugs before the flights fly offshore they will often have the digs just searching the people and the bags before they go.”
Wimbledon 2021 saw Novak Djokovic seal his 20th grand slam title with win over Matteo Berrettini.