From Bryncrug to anywhere: the volunteer who's trained his dog to search for dead bodies

 

Thomas Charles with, to his left, handler Dave Stubbs

Thomas Charles is the much-loved pet of Rosie and Dave Stubbs. But the seven-year-old working cocker spaniel is more than that - he has been trained by Dave to search for dead bodies; one of only a few dogs in the UK able to detect human remains in water.

Dog and handler could be called upon at any time to go anywhere - in Britain or overseas - to help recover bodies, or body parts, in water or on land.

Dave is a volunteer with the charity British International Rescue & Search Dogs, known as BIRD, a rapid-deployment search-and-rescue team that was set up in the wake of the Lockerbie disaster 36 years ago. Based near Conwy, it has about 20 members spread across the UK, with three in Bryncrug and Tywyn: Dave, fellow village resident Gary Pereira and Sally Shipley, who lives in Tywyn. 

"Gary helps me with Thomas Charles as well as the inflatable dinghy we use for training. Sally organises 'bodies' in the form of army cadets who hide in the woods for the dogs to find."

When Dave and Rosie bought Thomas Charles as a puppy - naming him after the Bala clergyman who famously sold Mary Jones her first Bible; the couple live in the cottage that was Mary's home for most of her adult life - they had no idea the spaniel would be anything other than a waggy-tailed member of the family. Then five years ago Dave heard about BIRD.

"I've been volunteering for about 30 years, first as a special constable, then as a first responder and more recently with Aberdyfi Coastguard Rescue Team, and I was looking for something different to do," recalls Dave, who also works full-time as a carer for adults with learning difficulties. "I'd taken my dad to hospital in Bangor and got talking to someone who told me about BIRD.

Certain that Thomas Charles had the right temperament for such specialist work, Dave offered his services. "He's always been good at following commands and he's very eager to please. He was given an assessment and they said, 'let's try him with cadaver work'." 

The training, which is ongoing, is painstaking; requiring commitment, patience and perserverance. It starts with teaching the dog to sniff out treats, say, beneath a row of plant pots. The animal learns to sit and stare at the pots that have treats underneath - knowing it'll be rewarded with the titbit. 

"To the dogs, it's a game - because when they find what we want them to discover, they're rewarded."

As training intensifies, the handler introduces pork - which is the closest smell to rotting human flesh - as well as human teeth, hair, finger nails, ashes and bone - "we've even used a piece of bone out of Rosie's knee after she had an operation"!

Finding a body in water is the hardest thing to train a dog to do, says Dave. Thomas Charles does much of his water training on a lake in Llanrwst, standing on a wooden platform at the front of the boat, sniffing the water as the dinghy circles an area where pork has been dropped in.

L to R: Dave, Thomas Charles and Gary with the BIRD dinghy

Thomas Charles is trained to search out bodies on land too - and Dave might also get called out if there's a live body to be found. For instance, he was put on standby after the Turkey-Syria earthquake in February 2023, which killed more than 50,000 people. "Unfortunately, red tape and paperwork prevented us from going."

With an 80 per cent success rate, using dogs to recover bodies is invaluable. But even highly-trained canines don't always do what's expected of them: "We were at Tonfanau quarry on one occasion and a policeman had hidden a piece of finger," remembers Dave. "Thomas Charles had no problem finding it - the problem was that he ate it!" 

Training is ongoing and takes place every six to eight weeks. And it's not only search-and-rescue training - dogs also need to be stock-trained, while handlers like Dave must be trained in first aid, for both humans and animals, and map reading.

As well as being called out - usually by the police - to search and recover bodies and misisng people, BIRD also delivers supplies to war and disaster zones. "When the Ukraine war started, we collected pet and medical supplies and a couple of our team members made three trips over to Poland with them."

Thomas Charles has been on only two jobs so far - on neither occasion was a body found at the site - but Dave is geared up to respond immediately if a call comes in.

"We never know when disaster will strike and we'll be called out - it could come at any time and we might have to go anywhere," he says. "To become a volunteer, you need community spirit. Working with BIRD is very rewarding. 

"When we go out on a job, I know I'm looking for a dead body, so that's what I could come across. I'm prepared for that."

* BIRD is funded entirely by donations. If you would like to support the charity, please contact Dave by email on Stubbs.123 at btinternet.com or by phone: 0774751763. He would also like to hear from anyone who is interested in joining the team.

L to R: Thomas Charles, Dave, BIRD chairman Brian Jones and Gary