Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This story is about service and what it costs when the job is done properly.
Today's guest is Dave Bartley, an officer with the Merseyside Police K9 department in the United Kingdom and the handler of a working dog named Ghost.
Ghost wasn't a pet, he was a partner. He ran towards danger. He did the work that police dogs are asked to do without hesitation.
Tragically, Ghost was killed in the line of duty.
This loss devastated Dave.
As time went on, he travelled all the way to Beautiful Joe park in Meaford, Canada to mourn, to learn, to help heal.
He stood in a place that understands our service animals should be remembered.
And he came home knowing what was missing.
So he built it.
A memorial, not just for Ghosts, but for every police dog who served and never came home.
This isn't about badges or ceremony.
It's about loyalty under pressure, loss without apology, and the bond between a police officer and their canine partner.
My name is John Littlefair and I'm incredibly honoured to bring you this inspirational episode of, of Never Just A Dog.
It's great to meet you finally.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Thank you and thanks for inviting me. It was like I say, I keep in touch, but only very loosely with the girls from Beautiful Joe and every kind of, you know, every so often we, we just exchange the odd email.
My plan is to go back and see them. Just, you know what it's like. Life gets in the way and before you know it, years have passed. But funny, I, I, I was in conversation with my cousin who lives across in Canada and our plan, touch wood, is to try and get back there maybe next year.
So if I can get back across to see him, I'll go and make time to go and see the girls at Beautiful Joe and just have a catch up with them. It's, you know, God, how many years now are we? 20, 25. So it'll be seven years nearly since I've seen them. So yeah, I need to get back and see them. But it was really nice to get that email from them just to say, how's everything going?
As I said on my emails to you, I was sunning myself up in roads of all places and, and obviously listen to your podcast and thought absolutely fantastic. I couldn't, I couldn't have, you know, the girls couldn't have done it any better, you know, they did, they did it justice. So it was just really nice and humbling to have them actually think about me all these years gone, you know, and what I did all those years ago and what I continue to do now. You know. So, yeah, thank you very much, mate. I really appreciate it.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: It's incredible how, you know, just having a conversation with someone on the other side of the world can lead to us having a conversation right now on, on the other side of the world.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: It's.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: It's pretty incredible. It's a. It's a dog thing, you know, Exactly.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: You know, you. You have to be a certain breed, pardon the pun, but you. You are. If I always say, you know, the years of being a dog handler and I, you know, when I left Merseyside Police and transferred over to the Isle of Man, I kind of.
Kind of had an itch that needed to be scratched, albeit I couldn't scratch it, just due to the fact that I'd transferred out the dog unit into just mainstream policing. But that itch continued to, you know, need scratching. And five hard years down the line, I'm now back in a position where I'm actually working with dogs and managing a dog team. I'm in charge of the, of the whole canine unit for the Isle of Man Constabulary on an operational level. So I'm back there. But it's taken some real hard work and dedication and again, you don't do it for the money. You know, you're never going to be a rich man being a police officer. But again, pardon the pun, you do it for the love of the dogs and for the.
The satisfaction it gives you watching an animal work with you and work as one, because that's what it is. You know, I say to our, our management and our managers, our big bosses who see what we do but don't understand how we do it. You know, the.
I think sometimes they just think that, you know, these dogs will work for anybody, but they can't. You know, it's the dedication and the time that we as handlers and trainers put into them and that devotion that they give back to you is why they do what they do on a daily basis. So it has. It's been a long, hard slog, but I had that itch that needed scratching and I'm glad that I've now been able to, to, to scratch it. It's just been. It's. I think the few years that I took out of dog policing, or policing with dogs, actually was the medicine I needed to kind of recover from what had happened to me in Liverpool and so on and so forth. So it was.
Albeit it was hard and I really felt.
I felt that, you know, I was missing something. It probably did me a lot of good to try and get that, that internal rehabilitation done and process what had happened in my brain and so let my family help me and so on.
And then obviously to go back into it now with a refreshed kind of thirst for working with them and we're getting there, you know, we're getting there now.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: So when you got into the police force, were you always attracted to the K9 unit or was it something that came gradually?
[00:06:01] Speaker B: I joined the police late in Life. I was 26, 27.
And I worked for. Before I joined the police, I worked for a private medical company in the IT industry. And I got to the point in life where I kind of felt as though no matter what I did, I wasn't making a difference. And I thought I need to do something completely different.
So I applied for the police, not thinking I would get in and to be fair, not thinking I would enjoy it. And I actually hadn't really considered what I was going to do in the police. I just thought, I'm going to go in there and there are so many different environments.
Before that, before, before joining the police, I'd never owned a dog. My parents were cat people and I'd grown up with cats but never owned a dog. I always interested in animals, always interested in dogs.
When I first joined the police, we all had to sit in a classroom, as you do with your general learning curve, and all these guest speakers would come in and the dog officer, shall we say, came in And I'm talking 20 years ago now, 20, 21 years ago, when dog officers were 6 foot 7, built like a, you know, brick house. Yeah, absolutely, you know, unkempt and stinking of dog.
And then next to him was the, you know, he brought this German shepherd in and it was about 55 kilos of fur and teeth. And he was like, you know, to watch the discipline and to watch the dedication that that dog showed to that handler, it just switched me on. It switched me on. And I thought, do you know what? This is interesting.
Nothing else bothered me. I'm not, you know, I'm not a traffic officer, albeit, you know, you have to do your general policing. And I then went to a job out of my training where I followed this, I followed this car and I ended up pursuing this car.
And you know, as per usual, you know, the offenders jump out and run off and these guys are like grease lightning. And I'm not like grease lightning. So I called upon the services of a dogman. And this, again, this, this hairy ass dog tips out of the van and I watched him go and I Just said to the dog handler, I'd like to follow you. And again, that was kind of my, yeah, this is what I want to do. I want to go into the dog unit. As you can imagine, I mean, you know, the UK compared to Australia or Canada or America, you know, as a tiny comparison, and our police forces are completely different. But Merseyside Police, it's a very. It's a big organization. There was, you know, when I first joined this, probably in the region of about four and a half thousand police officers to cover quite a small sort of geographical location. And trying to get into the dog unit was trying to be. Get into dead man's shoes. I did five years of general policing in and around Merseyside, Cut my teeth, you know, with some really kind of good jobs. But with that mindset that I, I always wanted to go into the dog unit.
It was just before I was asked to go to Northern Ireland to work with the police service in Northern Ireland for the G8 summit, when Barack Obama, I think it was, was the president, came over to Northern Ireland and I was asked to go to Northern Ireland to do some policing over there. So what, what we call a mutual aid, they needed extra police officers and I had a specialism in public order at the time.
So I went over there and just before I was about to go, the dog unit advertised for a post and I thought, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I then realized that one post and there were 75 applicants. Wow. Of course. So I was like, you are joking.
Yeah.
So I did two weeks in Northern Ireland not prepping for this interview because I thought, a, I've not got time. I've got to go to Northern Ireland, policing over there, and I've got to get that done. I'll come back and I'll just do my best, you know.
So 75 applications later, assessments and interviews, and I came second.
So you can imagine one job. I was absolutely gutted. Absolutely gutted.
I thought I was so close, you know, that is.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Don't get any closer than that, mate.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: You know, it was there. And yeah, came second in the interview. So I was, I was told, yeah, there's no immediate slots. However, if one opens up, you know, you'll be considered. But it only lasts. This kind of list only lasts for 12 months.
So anyway, I put it to the back of my mind, I thought, there's absolutely nobody gonna die, fall off a cliff or, you know, want to leave the department.
So it is what it is. I'll wait till the next person leaves. And anyway, about a Month and a half after, after I'd been told I wasn't successful, I got a phone call saying somebody's leaving, changing circumstances. As of Monday, you're going in the dog section.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
That must have been a pretty exciting moment for you.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: It absolutely was.
You know, I, I was like, wow, this is great.
So I, I literally had a week to get it into my head and, and figure it all out. And a week later it was posted to this dog section in the central Liverpool and I'd gone from being a response police officer, so just a general police officer in, in one of the boroughs in St. Helen, IN, IN Liverpool, to being, you know, a specialist officer in a force wide resource. So as a dog handler you would be sent all over Merseyside. You weren't assigned to a geographical location, granted, again, not like Australia where you may have to fly to your job. But yeah, you know, you were, you were posted to all over the force. So I, I was in. However, that's when I realized that dog handling wasn't as simple as people make it out to be.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: I'm sure it's, especially in the police.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Force, it's not just having a billion.
And this is it, you know.
My first dog, I didn't have him that long.
He was a, he was supplied by somebody and he was, he was a German shepherd and he was called Nico.
Nico used to be the dog that on training looked really good.
When we actually got him on the streets, I used to have to drag him out the back of the car to get him to go and work. And it was very, very clear early on that training was fine, but operational life wasn't for him.
So he was retired off quite early because it wasn't fair. And this is where we, we as dog handlers and we as people working with dogs, you have to put the welfare of the dog first.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Sure, absolutely. Understand that. Yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: You know, it was hard. My first dog, you know, it doesn't matter what you get, whether it's got three legs and, and no tail, you love it, you know, it's your first animal. So I was really gutted and it set me back because I thought I must have done this, you know, it must have been my fault. But it wasn't. Experience then tells you it wasn't.
And this is when Ghost came along.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: I was going to ask how you and Ghost became a team.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So go Ghost. Ghost came from a policing background. He was born in West Midlands in the police in Birmingham. So one of the biggest police forces in the UK outside of London is, is the West Midlands and their dog training school is what, or at the time was one of the biggest and they had a very, very big breeding program.
So Ghost was bred by West Midlands police and he had a brother and sister. His brother I believe, went down to the city of London. His sister remained a, a brood, so she was to, to to be bred from.
And Ghost was given to Merseyside on trial where he was used as a spare dog for one of the other courses. So he was just a spare dog. Every, every kind of training course you go on, you would always run just to make sure in case one dog went down or didn't. Sucks, didn't, didn't, wasn't successful. You would always run another dog as a spare dog and Ghost was the spare.
So a course that was being run immediately after my course, Ghost was a spare again. It got to the end of the course, everybody passed so they were going to sell him and I was like, I got, I got the opportunity. They said the downside is, Dave, you don't get a 16 week course within you've got two weeks.
Okay. However, Ghost was a shepherd, Malinois Cross, so a slightly different breed of dog, Kettle of fish.
We always say that the German shepherds of the world are our nice stable Ford cars, you know, nice and dependable. And your Malinois and your herders and so on are more like your Lamborghinis, little bit temperamental and will catch you out if you, if you do things wrong. So Ghost was a mix between a German shepherd and a Belgian Malinois and he was a bit like Jekyll and Hyde. He would be nice and nice and malleable when you wanted him to be and then he would turn.
So I got, I got two weeks with this dog and in those two weeks I got several stitches in my hand, several stitches in my leg.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: From Ghost.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I just wasn't quick enough. I, I, you know, he was, he was a very, very sharp and quick dog and I just wasn to it. However, I could see the potential and me and him bonded from week one.
You know, our first, our first two weeks of training, we were put out on the streets. We licensed in two weeks.
So we were tested and licensed in two weeks. And our first, our first shift after that two weeks was a day shift and I was deployed straight out to a stolen vehicle that had been pursued up the motorway and crashed. And two offenders had ran off across fields into woods.
Our helicopter was out, all our traffic guys, we had Local patrollers looking for them. Even the helicopter couldn't find them. And I made down there, put the dog in the last location that the patrol officers had seen them into these woods and then sent the dog in and 30 seconds later heard bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, followed by screaming.
So Ghosty did what he needed to do and well done, Ghost.
Hit the ground running. Absolutely hit the ground running. And from then on he and I just, yeah, we were a great partnership, great partnership. So it was brilliant as to that. I was, you know, I spent 12 months with him, we had loads of great jobs. And then I got my specialist dog, which was Lucy and she's, she was a Labrador.
So. No, I know where you are when it comes to labs.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: I wouldn't be a good trainer though. I'd be the, I'd be just as lazy as my Labradors.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: My, my, my Labrador.
Yeah, she was a, she was a rescue dog. So she came as a rescue and I, again, I, I kind of, kind of fell into her in some respects. I, I, I got a phone call from my boss on a Friday saying, Dave, we, we did say that we weren't going to give you a second dog at the time. However, we need you to go to Lancashire Police up the road and on Monday and we'll drop a dog off at your house in half an hour. So this was Friday afternoon.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: That's giving you a little bit of notice, isn't it?
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. So I was like, oh, my word. Okay. And I got, I got, somebody dropped this little yellow Labrador off at my house with a little tiny, skinny, you know, unkempt, smelly Labrador. And it had come from the, the rspca, if you know what that is.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: You know, they look after or they can remove dogs from ill treated families and so on.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: We have the RSPCA here in Australia.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we have, we have the MSPCA over here. So we said similar kind of cirques, but in the uk, the RSPCA had taken Lucy from a house that had not been very kind to her. They, they didn't feed her, they locked her in cupboards and, and you know, she was, she was really, well, poorly treated. So for the police to try and give her a new lease of life, but she was really nervous, really nervous. And the only thing that excited you was when you got that ball out, her eyes lit up. And I thought, yeah, we've got something here that we can work on. But the training, given the fact that we'd only just spent a weekend Together I had to treat her with such kid gloves because if you were, if you went too quickly towards her, she would think she was getting wronged. So she'd cower. And it took a lot of bonding and a lot of nurturing and a lot of time to, to, to just get to come out of a shell. But yeah, you know, after we licensed with her, I, I felt there wasn't anything that I couldn't do. You know, I had the shepherd that was happy to go out and find people. I had the Labrador that could find me the drugs, the cash, the guns. And that was it. That was the start of my career and it was an amazing career. You know, over there we had some formidable jobs.
I've lost count of the number of prisoners that, that me and Ghost had. He backed me up in large scale disturbances, football disorder.
You know, he would defend me with, you know, ultimately he defended me with his life when it came to it. But he, he would do everything that I would ask of him and more. And again, Lucy, she made me look amazing. You know, it was all down to her. But we took dozens of guns off the streets of Merseyside, kilos of illegal drugs off the streets and you know, it's all down to again, that bond that you have with them, they don't just work for anybody.
And again, you know, it's, it's how you deal with them, how you treat them and how you look after them and it's so rewarding. And we did, we had many years.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: And they'd live at home with you, Dave, at the end of like, let's say working shift.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So they, you know, in, when I, where I lived in Warrington in, in the uk, my back garden was dedicated pretty much to the dogs. You know, we had a large kennel, double kennel block in the back garden with a big run area and they would come to, come come home with me, go to work with me. Obviously you know, I, I laugh, you know, with the wife, but I spend more time with the dogs than I do with my wife that way in some respects. But you know, you do as. It's not just a job, it has to be a way of life. You have to commit, you know those people that think that working with animals and, and being a handler and certainly a police handler is a 9 to 5 job where you can switch off. It's actually one of the only jobs in the police where you literally do take your work home with you again. Now I'm in 15 years down the line as a handler and as a police canine kind of manager, I say to my new guys, if the first thing that you think about when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to bed at night is not your dog, then you're in the wrong job, because that's how it should be. You know, these dogs are working dogs and as such, we can't treat them like pets.
They have to be treated slightly differently because they're there to do a job and they need to understand that hierarchy within our pack. But on a flip side, like I say, you've also got to make sure their welfare is the first thing that you think about every single day.
And I said that to my team of handlers. You know, the day you think about something else other than your animals is the day that you can come and tell me that you want another job somewhere else, because this isn't the job for you. The animal welfare side of things for me comes before anything.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: That's really incredible, Dave.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah, so. But yeah, it's, it is. It's been a great career so far and hopefully, you know, one that I'll be able to continue for, for another 10 years before I retire.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: I think you're still young, you've got plenty of time.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I've got 14 years, not that I'm counting tragically.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: You lost Ghost too, in the line of duty. Are you okay to speak about how that all went down?
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah, like I say, there's. There's lots of therapy gone through and plenty of tablets and so on and so forth and times a healer, but it's one thing that I'll never forget.
So again, you go to work and you come home from work hoping that nothing goes wrong.
And, you know, the decisions that you make during that working day have an impact on everything that you do. And, you know, on reflection of everything that I went through during that night, the decision making process, like you always will review it. And if I hadn't have done what I'd have done, I wouldn't have done my job properly. And sometimes, you know, no matter what decision you make, there is going to be an adverse outcome. And that's the way I have to now look at it. I can't foresee what other people will do and how other people will react. I have to base my decision making on the information that's presented to me and the threat that's presented to me and the risks that presented to me. But with, with the way the incident went down, we were deployed on a night shift I think it was our last night shift, if I remember rightly. So we'd had a busy week. We used to work four shift pattern that was four on and four off. So we would work two 12 hour days and then two 12 hour night shifts and then we'd have four, four days off and it was our last night shift.
Night started really well.
We'd been into Liverpool. We detained two people that had been trying to steal a car.
So we tracked through, tracked with the, with ghost through the streets of Liverpool and found two people hiding after they tried to steal a car.
And it was great night and it got to around half past three in the morning, four o' clock in the morning, which we always used to call on the graveyard, the witching hour. It was the time where, you know, everybody was asleep and those that weren't asleep were most likely committing crime.
So we decided, or I decided to.
It was a particularly quiet kind of witching hour.
So what I did was I made the decision to go and just sit on top of a motorway bridge with a cup of coffee and watch vehicles go down the motorway as you would do when there's nothing else doing and listen to the radio, as in the police radio and see if anything moved.
And all of a sudden we're sat there and the report of an intruder alarm came in at a business premises just on the border between Merseyside and Greater Manchester. So the two, the forced boundaries place I know relatively well, but a place that's surrounded by fields on one side and then road networks on the other.
So I decided, I thought I'll go start heading over there. It was a good 10 minutes even on a blue light run. So even with the emergency lighting activated. So we went down.
Due to the fact that it's on the force border, there were no local patrol officers available to go. So I was making on my own essentially.
I knew the geographical location quite well. So I went and did a bit of a, what I would class as a covert run. I went in, I drove in round the back of the premises which backed onto a field and when I got to, when I got to the field and with a little gated entrance, I noticed gate wasn't there. And then in the field I noticed that there was a four wheel drive vehicle with the lights still on.
At that point I knew that this wasn't just a, an intruder alarm, it was a confirmed burglary in progress.
You know, people don't just leave a vehicle in the, in a field.
I knew that we were on.
So it Was at that point I asked, I said, I need other patrols to come down here, I need some support.
I blocked the vehicle in with my vehicle and I deployed with Ghost onto the perimeter of the premises in order to just try and put a containment on as best I could.
I, at this point, I had the element of surprise on them because they obviously didn't know that I was here.
And after a couple of minutes of the control staff and operators trying to get all the control, the patrol officers down there, I said, well, if you can't get anyone from Merseyside, let's get some from Manchester.
We could just do with a couple of officers because there is going to be a point where I need to go in here and detain these people or search for them.
So again, they put calls out to the neighboring forces and I think there were two officers making, but they were a good 25, 30 minutes away.
So it was a decision that I'm going to have to wait and see what happens and just play it by ear. So I remained on the perimeter for a good while, asking for updates and seeing whether I could get a helicopter up and so on and so forth.
At which point I heard voices in the compound saying, I can hear the police.
At that point, I've got two choices. I either stand fast, which is what, what the police are there to do. We're there to catch offenders and bring them to justice. So I made the decision that I had to go in, I had to go over the fence and go into the premises.
I did so. At which point we, we deployed into the premises and there were a number of offenders that started to flee.
I went after one and the dog went after another.
And as I started pursuing one of them, I could see that one of them was climbing over a fence and the dog was pretty much hot on his heels.
At that point, you kind of have to say to yourself, I've got to go with my dog, got to go with my dog. But I was a good, a good 35, 40 meters from him at this point.
So I changed that attack, changed direction and went after him.
He went over 2, 3 fences after this guy. And as I climbed over the last one and up an embankment through a small wooded area, I could hear the dog scrambling with this guy.
And the next thing I heard, as I got to the top of the embankment, heard a huge bang.
And it was at that point I knew that this guy had crossed the road, ran across the road and Ghost had gone after him.
Looking at the way he was and what was around there.
He'd been the, The. He. He'd obviously deployed onto the guy and the guy has either thrown him, thrown him using his arm or pushed him.
But unfortunately, Ghost was hit by a vehicle and the offender continued running across the road or the carriageway of the road and off the other side.
But at that point, obviously, I had to. I had to look after my dog. The downside is, is his injuries were too severe and he pretty much died there and then.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: God, that's terrible.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a decision, like I say, I sit there and.
Having been through the therapy and been through all of the counseling and the discussions with people, and I've gone through police courses to teach me how to make decisions and give tactical advice, and every decision that you make has a consequence.
You know, I could have. I. I could rightly have made the decision not to deploy the dog in there, but is that doing what my role is as a police officer? No, it's not.
Again, I can't. I can't account for everybody's, you know, everybody's actions and, and, and it is a decision that will live with me for. For the rest of my life.
But I, I know ultimately that. That any other decision that I'd have made would not have been doing what I signed up and the oath that I swore to do. I wouldn't have been doing that job.
And unfortunately, Ghost did pay the price, and again, that will live with me. But I know he was doing his job.
So, yeah, it's a difficult one, but again, it's one that I don't think I could. I could. I don't think I could change the outcome, and I don't think I could change the, the decision making based on. On who I am as a person. And what, what we were there to do that night must have had such.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: A devastating effect also on your whole department.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it did.
It was, you know, it was a very.
It hit the whole unit because we're, you know, we were. There wasn't many of us, and it was, it was like losing. It's like losing a colleague.
You know, I've. I have lost colleagues on duty as well.
You know, during my service. I've, you know, people that I've joined with, I've. I've unfortunately lost. But, you know, this guy or this dog, again, you know, it isn't just a dog. It's never just a dog. You know, it's. It's your partner. And, and, and it was, it was like. It was like losing an arm. It was like you know, struggling to take oxygen in. For a while, I was, I, I have really struggled as cop.
You put the big brave face on, you know, you know, we're, we're there. We, we have to, we have to, we have to move on in the face of adversity. We have to show that, you know, we're able to cope with stuff. But upon reflection, and again, I think my family have helped me a massive amount with this, but it's taken a long time to realize it. I think inside it broke me and it's taken a long time to finally be able to talk about it without the, the hairs on me arm standing up on end. You know, even, Even this last 12 months, you know, I'm at the, I'm at the stage now where I can talk about it, but yeah, it's, it has a massive effect and, and albeit I think it has just an effect on me, it hasn't. It's had an effect on my wife, my daughter, you know, he was part of our family, you know, and I think how it's affected me as, as, as affected those guys as well. So, albeit you don't see it at the time, the, you know, I think grief is a bit of a weird thing.
So. And, and that was kind of the, the prompt to, to look at doing something more.
You know, I had Lucy with me and, and, and it's kind of weird because those two dogs, they used to. I used to have two kennels in the back garden. I never used to use them. I used to use one because the pair of them would stay in the same kennel block together, you know, but all of a sudden she was on her own. So it was kind of, I've got to return to work. I've got to do something. I've got to look after Lucy. I've got to carry on doing what I need to do.
And I think again, part of the, the building blocks of rehabilitation was to, to. To do something more.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Is that when you came with the idea for a memorial for Ghost.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah, and, and, and it wasn't necessarily just for him.
I know a lot of people do it, but that not a lot of people think about police dogs, you know, and this is where I, I thought, I, I don't just want to recognize Ghost. It's got to be more than just that.
It's got to be something for all the police dogs. And it was actually interesting because at the time I was, I was thinking about this.
There was a guy down in, in Essex, an ex, an ex Essex police dog handler who was looking at a National UK Police K9 memorial. And initially I, I wanted to just help out with him and we did a few bits and pieces.
I then thought, no, I, I think that, you know, I need to be a little bit more local.
So I, that's where I, I then put the, the, the initial wheels in motion to look at fundraising for a canine memorial that was called Ghost, but it was for all of the police dogs that served in Merseyside and it would be a prominent place for the long term in Merseyside's police dog headquarters. So that's where kind of the inspiration came from. And, and, and so started the long process, including going to Meaford.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Did you have to fundraise for that? Was there a local support, local government support or support to, to build the memorial?
[00:38:34] Speaker B: So what, what we did was I approached, initially, I approached the national canine memorial owners, so, so the guy in Essex and asked how he'd done it and he'd basically got funding through just, just general fundraising and he'd been doing it for a while, but hadn't really achieved anything. So the way I thought about it was I want to fundraise some of it myself through, you know, charity fun runs and I did half marathons and so on and so forth, and a lot of talks to people about how, you know, how we recover from grief and so on and so forth. And that was within the police.
But I also approached our. In the uk, we have local authority crime commissioners and they kind of head up the political side of the police. Funnily enough, I think our government is just about to scrap them, or the UK government are just about to scrap them now. But our, our police and crime commissioner at the time was a lady called Jane Kennedy and I. It was, it was at a commendation ceremony for Ghost. He got a posture, posthumous. I can never say that. Posthumous commendation for all the work and stuff that he'd done for the police. And it was at that point I, I thought, I've got to strike while the iron's hot. And obviously I met with our Chief constable and police and Crime Commissioner and I thought, now's the opportunity. I'm going to say it in a public environment and hold them, to basically bat them into a corner and hold them to account. So, oh, well done.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: That's a good, that is a very good ploy.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: And I literally did it. I shook the, I shook, shook both their hands and I said, I actually wouldn't mind speaking to you guys around some funding for a Memorial?
Yeah, I think I got some, some scathing looks, but they couldn't really do very much with it.
So after that, you know, when it goes on to the old cheese and biscuits afternoon, I followed them and backed them into a corner and said, look, this is what I want to do. I'm willing to raise as much funding as I can.
Is this something that obviously, you know, the organization or the wider government can help with?
And it was. Jane Kennedy, the crime commissioner, said, we'll have a meeting. And that was the start of it in terms of us looking at what we need to do, how we need to go about it.
We had a meeting and she basically said that obviously funding within Merseyside is tight, where it's a, it's, it's not a very affluent area, there's lots of poverty and therefore general police funding is very tight. But what she did do is she said that she had access to a fund that was in relation to things like, things when, when things like knife amnesties and gun amnesties happen and they, they get rid of all of the knives and guns, they get smelted down and that then gets converted into monetary funds through the scrap, essentially.
And she said, I'd be willing to see what's in that fund to see whether we can grant money towards assisting with the memorial.
So she tasked me with as much fundraising as I could do, which I did.
She then started to go ahead and look at that and it did take a long time, I won't lie to you, it took a few years. But it came to the point where we, we, we kind of looked at how much it was going to cost. I think, I think the bill was in the region of about 16,000 pound. And yeah, it's not, it's not cheap and nothing is cheap. But it was interesting because we found a, and it actually has some Isle of Mantis, which is very, very weird.
But we, we found a sculptor from Liverpool, local fella, and he, he'd done the sculpting for the Beatles statue, the famous Beatles statue in Liverpool city center. He also did the Bee Gees statue on the Isle of Man in Douglas. If you, if you go onto Google and type in the Bee Gees statue, you'll see it.
Now you're going to ask me the name of them and I cannot for the life of me remember his name.
Andrew Edwards. There we go. Andrew Edwards. What a gentleman.
Now again, I can't believe how, how weird this all links into it.
So Andrew Edwards and I met in Liverpool and He said, I want to do this, I want to do that. And I said, well, I just want something that would remember Ghost.
He asked me to send some pictures to him and the one that I sent him was the, the picture that you see of him or the, the sculpture that you see of him in terms of him wearing his harness. But the picture I sent him was of him sat. And Andrew said, I actually want to, I actually want to create a moving sculpture of him. You know, everything, everyone that we, every sculptures that we do, we're all static. I want to, I want to recreate the movement of him and the spirit.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Of Ghost, to pardon the pun.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. And, and, and that's what he did. So he went away and he did some, some sketches. And in the meantime, I'm still doing some assisting work with the UK Canine Memorial. And I got a phone call from one of the, the ladies who looks after the, the UK charity.
And she was saying, I was, I was talking to my son over the, the weekend and he was saying that he's just been asked to do a new sculpture. And I went, your son's not Andrew, is it? And she went, yes, it is.
And she lives up in Scotland. He lives in Liverpool. And yeah, I realized that I knew his mother.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: How crazy is that, how everything's so linked. What is it called, two or three degrees of separation?
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's totally, it was totally linked. So that was it. You know, I kind of, I kind of never cared how much it cost anyway, but I, I didn't matter what this guy came out with. It was that it was him that was going to do the, do the memorial. So, yeah, off he went and, you know, did his thing.
The downside is like, everything and like you covered hit.
So everything was then put on hold, you know, and it was at that time I'd kind of made the decision that I needed to change my life and, you know, take a pun and move to the Isle of Man and join the police or move the move to the police over there.
So I never actually saw the, I've got pictures of it, but I never actually saw the, the memorial going in, being lifted into position just because obviously everything was travel lockdown and there was no commuting between the Isle of Man and the uk.
However, the moment I was able to, to go across, I, I, I went straight across to see it.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: So that must have been incredible to see the memorial, like right there. That must have been quite emotional for you.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: It was because I, I'd seen this, I'd seen the drawings, I'd seen the schematics, I'd seen the clay, the little clay model, but I'd never seen it cast in bronze and I'd never seen the intricacies of it. And you know, albeit I remained in, quite, quite involved with Merseyside but it was like we're doing now, it's like on teams, you know, we, we had to do it remotely.
There's nothing, you know, you're not there so you're only giving advice and guidance. And the first time I came over to see was interesting because I asked Ghosts Puppy walkers, so they were a family who I still keep in touch with now all these years later, but Anne Marie and Darren Reese from Birmingham, I asked them to come to Merseyside to have a look at the memorial the same time I had. So they raised Ghost as a puppy up until he left as a, as a pup to come and be a police dog.
So they and I met up and, and we all, Merseyside Police put on a kind of a second unveiling just for us and it was really humbling. Really humbling.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: That's incredible. That, yeah, that would have been incredibly humbling. Do you get back to Merseyside now often? Do you go back to Liverpool or.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: I do, I haven't been. I'm trying to think the last time I went, I need to go across again. Luckily obviously one of our big ports is in Liverpool so I, I do still link in with Merseyside quite a lot. Haven't been to their headquarters for must be 18 months.
But I do need to go across at some point. I am actually going across next weekend but I've got to go back down to West Midland.
But I, I just don't have time to go to Liverpool. I, I'm, I'm so short on time. However, I have to go across because I have to have a meeting with, with somebody who, who works at the, the command center. So I'm going to make sure I take the time to go across and, and, and visit, you know, visit the memorial. I've been a few times and, and you know the guys, even though I don't work there, the guys that work on the security gates and so on, so for still know me. So I think the last time I went across, okay, I went across my motorbike, I just done a, I'd just done a tour around the UK and I called in just before I went back to the, back to the ferry and you know, dressed as a, the operational Command center in Liverpool is quite a quite fortified building, shall we say. But you know, I rode up as a guy on a motorbike with a balaclava on and everything else. And the moment they saw me they were like, Dave, go and go and enjoy yourself. You know, even the fact that I don't work there anymore, they still let me in and those, that, yeah, they're great. The guys there, they will still look after me and make sure I can go and see the, the statue. Some of the guys I work with now, in fact my, my boss, he went across there the other week and he, he spent some time at the memorial. So, and it gets used and this, this is, this is what I really like. I'm still in touch with the kennel manager John and some of the guys down in Liverpool and they use the memorial all the time. You know, they use it for the purple poppy appeal, which is something in the UK that's, that's quite prevalent and that's again, it's, you know, it's about fallen, fallen animals, service animals, almost like Armistice Day but for, for dogs, you know. And they have regular kind of pictures for social media if you follow Merseyside Police Dog Unit, you'll see on Facebook and, and so on and so forth that they, that they use it quite a lot for their social media. So it's, it's nice that it gets used.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: That's fantastic.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and, and that, that was the point of it, the point of it was not just to remember Ghost, albeit the statue was called ghost, it was to leave a legacy, to remind people as to why we use these animals and that this, this statue is there to be to be used and reflected upon and that's. That, that to me just makes everything that we've done and makes his life worthwhile that, that you know, people think about him and think about what our animals do for us and that's it, you know, that, that's, that, that, that's kind of, you know, the, the, the, the, the reason behind why we do it.
So I'm really pleased that it gets, it gets used all the time.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: Do you still have Lucy?
[00:51:09] Speaker B: So, so, so no, unfortunately I, I, when I left, when I left Liverpool I had to rehandle Lucy and Chico. So Chico was my dog after, as a ghost.
I did have another dog for a short period and she, she was, she was lovely but again she didn't cut the mustard and she went to become a prison dog.
So work with the prisons. But I then got Chico who was, who was a character, but he was Ruth. He was a ruthless character. Lovely dog, but, yeah, you didn't want to get on the wrong side of him. And when I, When I transferred over, obviously that they were. They still had work life left in them. And it was always.
I always said that when Lucy retired, I would come back across and I would take her as a pet when she finished and retired. And she went to a good friend of mine who only had a year or 18 months left. So I thought, when she retires in 18 months, I'll come back across and get her. And that was our agreement. Chico was rehandled. And again, I did meet. I have met them or I did meet them since. When I left. I came back with Lucy, though I'd had her from such a young age. However, 18 months after I moved over, I got a phone call from, From. From the guy who took her, Barry, saying, do you remember our agreement? And I said, yes, said. He said, now, I'll be honest with you. He said it, you know, the agreement still stands. He said, but my daughter has just lost her dog. I'm due to retire next week, and she wants to keep Lucy. I'm like, oh, don't. You're pulling on my heartstrings.
So I made the decision and, and both me and Barry, you know, Barry, a really good guy, I worked with him for years, and he. He said, you know, it should be on the next boat out there if you say you want to. He said, I just. My daughter's just asked. And I said, I can't do that to your daughter. I can't do that to her.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: Dave, thanks so much for joining me. This has been amazing to hear your story and I really appreciate your time.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: You're welcome, man. At any time. And it was such a pleasure.
Yeah, it was such a pleasure to.
To. To have the opportunity and, and like I say, thanks very much for. For inviting me.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to this beautiful episode of Never Just a Dog.
You can reach out to me directly.
My email is johnohnlittlefair.com I'll include the links to not only my email, but also to the website in your show notes below. Just scroll down.
And once again, thank you for tuning in to this truly inspirational episode of Never Just a Dog.
