Two specialist detection dogs, who spent over a decade searching for illegal cigarettes and tobacco, have been awarded a prestigious PDSA Medal for their unwavering devotion to duty and service to society following an impressive decade-long career.
Spaniels Yoyo and Scamp from B.W.Y Canine have become the 53rd and 54th recipients of the PDSA Order of Merit*, the equivalent of the animals’ OBE.
Presented their Medals on 2 October 2024, by Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Edinburgh at an event held at the Tower of London.
Scamp and Yoyo and HRH
Alongside their handler Stuart Phillips, Yoyo and Scamp have uncovered 40 million illegal cigarettes and 18 tonnes of illicit hand-rolling tobacco with a joint approximate value of £31.2 million, as well as over £5 million of criminal cash.
Throughout their career, the pair searched more than 10 premises a day, every working day, visiting over 6,600 shops, 210 storage sites, 400 domestic dwellings and more than 1,000 vehicles.
Yoyo and Scamp’s owner, Stuart, added:
“I feel very emotional, in all honesty. It’s incredible to see the dogs getting recognised.
“I work a lot with the Trading Standards, Police and HMRC Customs units and what’s remarkable about Yoyo and Scamp is their consistency.
“Both dogs came from unwanted families as rescues, and despite that, they put so much effort into their work, often in very challenging circumstances.
“The role is also different to that of a lot of detection dogs. Yoyo and Scamp were trained over 12 months and continued that training into the job. Normally, a detection dog operates on an eight-week training programme.
“Two years into their work, they were consistently having finds, sometimes as many as four or five each day, all located in sophisticated concealments.
“Ultimately, tackling criminality is why I do what I do, but this award is a testament of their success.”
Yoyo, 11, born July 2013, and Scamp, 12, born July 2012, are two of the longest-serving specialist detection dogs in the UK, having worked for over 10 years before retiring in 2022 and 2023 following an extremely successful career.
Alongside their handler Stuart, Yoyo and Scamp conducted more than 1,000 searches a year, working with Trading Standards Officers and Police Services all across the country to discover illegal cigarettes and tobacco.
PDSA Director General Jan McLoughlin and Stuart Phillips, with Yoyo (right) and Scamp (left) Scamp (left) and Yoyo (right) 2
Some of the duo’s most notable searches and finds from across the UK are as follows:
Walsall Council
Yoyo helped to find 112,000 illegal cigarettes and 40kg of hand-rolling tobacco with an estimated street value of £85,000. On another occasion and despite not being trained to find drugs, Yoyo also managed to identify a storage unit containing Cannabis with an estimated value of £750,000.
Scamp found a sophisticated concealment, where a key fob operated the movement of part of a wall in the storeroom, revealing numerous packets of illicit cigarettes.
Throughout their careers, Yoyo and Scamp have uncovered 40 million illegal cigarettes and 18 tonnes of illicit hand-rolling tobacco with a joint approximate value of £31.2 million, as well as over £5 million of criminal cash. They have searched over 6,600 shops, 210 storage sites, 400 domestic dwellings and more than 1,000 vehicles.
Newcastle upon Tyne
In a shop that had previously been searched by Trading Standards Officers, Yoyo found multiple units of illegal cigarettes and tobacco that had been previously hidden from the Officers. Whilst outside the shop, Scamp started to show some interest in a parked car. Scamp sniffed the boot a couple of times then stood dead still, staring intently at it. Police who were accompanying Trading Standards on the day instructed the owner to open the car – 20 sleeves of tobacco were found within the car.
North Lincolnshire Council
After recovering illegal tobacco from a shop, Stuart took Yoyo into the rear yard of the shop where Yoyo immediately made his way to the alleyway and began to indicate at a steel roller shutter door at the adjacent premises. When the door was opened, there was another locked door, with a staircase behind, which again had a locked door at the top of two flights of stairs. On entering the flat behind the locked doors, the team discovered 250,000 cigarettes and 200kg of tobacco. This discovery led to a Crown Court trial and conviction of the shop operator who received a custodial sentence.
On another occasion, when searching a bedsit, Scamp located over 125,000 cigarettes and 275 kg of tobacco concealed beneath kitchen units, hidden within bed frames and furniture.
Now, the pair are enjoying retirement in Pembrokeshire, Wales, with their owner Stuart and his wife and daughter.
“We live in a beautiful part of the world surrounded by beaches. All my dogs, live where we do, scamp and yoyo no different.
“All their time with me, they’ve never been in kennels. They’ve lived as part of the family in the house, even as working dogs before retirement they were a part of the family.
“Next to our kitchen, we have a small room where I keep bottled water and household utilities.
“Everybody in the family refers to this room as Scamp’s bedroom. Yoyo spends most of his time on the sofa now. My Father-In-Law, now in his 90s, looks after chicken and geese on the land here. Every morning, these two are out early with him.
“It’s safe to say they really enjoy their life to the maximum.”
