JULY

AS THE months pass, the work steps up for the now six-month-old pups. Tala begins training with a special chemical ‘odour’ (left). As well as identifying samples containing it, he will also be trained on lower and lower concentrations to check how sensitive his nose is. ‘When he is confident with that, at about the age of ten months, we will introduce him to the disease he will be trained to detect,’ says Claire. ‘You can’t swap between different diseases, so we will choose one where he can make a real impact.’ At the moment, the charity has 35 bio-detection dogs who take turns to come in to the centre daily between 9am and 4pm to work as and when needed. All the bio-detection dogs live in homes as part of a caring family, leading normal, happy lives as pet dogs. They are dropped off in the morning and picked up in the evening. ‘They are all intelligent dogs and enjoy the challenge,’ says Claire.