Scotland’s only underwater sniffer dog has retired from duty after 11 years of helping grieving families.
Luss man Iain Marshall and springer spaniel Barra worked tirelessly together to find the bodies of those who had lost their lives in waterways.
Barra undertook special training as a pup and could find human remains by standing at the bow of a boat and sniffing the air.
His special skills have seen him help hundreds of grieving families across the country find closure, with Iain and Barra travelling as far as Wales to help with investigations.
However last week Iain announced that, due to mobility issues, Barra would be enjoying his trips on waterways as a tourist from now on.
Iain told the Lennox: “We’ll miss having him out and about with us, but it’s just proving a bit too much now.
“Last week, we decided that his back end was getting away from him a wee bit and that enough was enough.
“He’s done more than enough over the years and we were more than happy to retire him.
“Barra will still come out with us on the river as a tourist. He’ll be sitting in his big chair quite the thing.”
Barra and Iain undertook specialist training in Wales in 2011 after Iain came across an article in a magazine.
He explained: “I was in the Coastguard and we were dealing with situations where people were entering the River Clyde around the Erskine Bridge and all these kinds of places.
“A search went on and then we’d be stood down. And I always thought about the person who was still in the River, so we came up with this.
“One of the lads brought a magazine to us and it had an article about dogs that were capable of doing this sort of
work.
“I went down to Wales and picked up Barra who was trained down there by Mick Swindles and Dave Jones who had a good write-up for training dogs for these kind of things.
“We did some training with them, then came back up the road for a couple of weeks.
“And then we were back down the road doing more training after doing our homework.
“We got his qualifications and that was it. Off we went.”
And it wasn’t long before Barra was making a big impact, finding his first missing person while still in training and earning a reputation for helping families at the darkest of times.
Iain continued: “Originally it was only for the River Clyde area and the Leven, but we also did a lot of work on land as well.
“It took off and we’ve been all over the UK doing searches. We were called down to South Wales for the April Jones search for example.
“If anybody made contact with us and asked us if we could assist then we were more than happy to do so.
“When families do come to us they know it’s a recovery mission. But it’s a relief for them when they can get that closure.
“There are some cases where people have never been found.
“There’s one story where a family member said she feels guilty-looking out the window on a winter’s night knowing that one of her family is out there missing. That’s always stuck with me.”
Despite the serious nature of the work, it remained fun for Barra.
Iain added: “It’s like a game to Barra. He knows what he’s looking for and when he gets it then you can see the excitement in him.
“It’s a good feeling when the dog performs well and you know you are able to give a family closure.”
And he admits that Barra’s retirement is unlikely to stop him from answering the call of duty.
“At the moment I’m deciding whether to go for another dog or whether I should call it a day” he concluded.
“We’ve done 11 years with Barra and I did 18 in the Coastguard.
“There comes a point where you have to a draw a line.
“But if anyone ever came to us and asked for assistance then we’d be getting the boots on and out the door straight away I think.”
