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Essex And Suffolk Water Get A New Team Member
3 January 2019, 15:35 | Updated: 3 January 2019, 16:41
Essex and Suffolk Water's new team member Denzel the sniffer dog helps to stop leaks.
Denzel is a three year old springer spaniel that has been trained to help the leakage detection team locate leaks in the company's pipe network.
The four legged worker has been trained to pick up the scent of chlorine, used to disinfect water supplies, and will search land with water pipes and alert his handlers so they can investigate and fix any leaks in the system.
Essex & Suffolk Water Network Performance Specialist Joe Butterfield told Heart:
"We've seen so many stories where working and searching dogs have produced results for the likes of the police and the military that it would be foolish of us not to give this a try and to see if the technique can be applied to our supply area.
"We are always looking for new and innovative ways to save water and detect leaks and recruiting Denzel to the team is a fantastic example of this!"
Denzel's handlers, Luke Jones and Ross Stephenson of CAPE SPC are ex-military dog trainers and put Denzel through rigorous training so he could sniff out and detect leaks. They've also trained a two year old cocker spaniel, Snipe to work with Denzel.
Handler, Luke Jones told Heart:
"Using dogs to search for drugs and explosives is well known, but there are a host of other applications that we are only just starting to explore. We're really excited by the progress Denzel and Snipe have made over the last six months.
"CAPE SPC are continually reviewing results and data with hope to building a strong case study which evidences the benefits of this asset."
The dogs are helping Essex and Suffolk Water to fulfil their pledge of reducing leaks on it's network by 17.5% over the next few years.
