Mojo – the Arena bomb hero police dog – retires
THE first police dog on the scene after a bomb tore through the Manchester Arena is retiring.
PD Mojo worked through the night with his handler Pc Phil Healy following the attack, which killed 22 people and left hundreds more injured on May 22 last year.
The hard-working collie was honoured for his bravery at the prestigious dog show Crufts, winning a Humanitarian Award.
Eight-year-old Mojo has worked in the force since he was 12 months.
He was put on a course at a training centre in Keston, London, before getting to work.
From helping keep the royal family safe to catching criminals, there was rarely a dull day for Mojo.
Pc Healy said: “Working with Mojo is like working with your best friend. He pays a lot of attention to me. He doesn’t take his eyes off me. I put a lot of faith in him, but then again he puts a lot of faith in me.
“As far as retirement is concerned, hopefully he’ll be able to sit by the fire, look back and just enjoy himself and relax.
“I think we’ve already decided that there’s going to be a nice little basket for him that he can curl up in. He’ll be nice and happy, looked after.” The horrors of the Arena bombing had an impact on Mojo’s health. He suffered stress-related alopecia in the aftermath of the atrocity.
At the time, Pc Healy said: “On the night of the Arena attack, it was such a long, long day. He did 11 hours of searching.
“About a week afterwards, Mojo developed stress-related alopecia. His hair started falling out. We are sure it was brought on by that night.
“Fortunately, it’s starting to grow back now. There are still some patches but hopefully he will be back to his fluffy pom-pom self again soon.
“After the incident, we gave him a lot of down-time, increased his food intake and gave him special energy pouches of food when he needed to get back to work.”
Working with Mojo is like working with your best friend Handler Pc Phil Healy