Ex-Shropshire cop leads the way as a dog trainer
He is a retired police dog handler – and now he has turned his hand to showing wayward pooches how to follow the straight and narrow.
Mort Smith from Baschurch was in West Mercia Police for 25 years, and believes he has worked with nearly 1,000 dogs after setting up his own training business.
But despite having worked with some of the toughest dogs to hunt down criminals, Mr Smith's biggest challenge to date is a pint sized Yorkshire terrier.
Mr Smith, 56, said: "I have been doing this sort of thing for 33 years, I was a dog handler with the police for 25 years.
"I wanted to do it since when I was a teenager, I was in the scouts and we had a visit.
"That was it for me, I worked with dogs going after criminals and searching for drugs.
"When I retired there was this hole in my life and it was something I just had to do."
Mr Smith left West Mercia Police in 2006. Having previously run obedience classes at Shrewsbury District Dog Club, he says he spotted a gap in the market when he first went into business.
He said: "It's one thing having an obedience class and the dog will behave for an hour but that wasn't a solution for a lot of people. So I decided to offer one-on-one help at home and work with people in a domestic situtaion. "
Mr Smith said: "The main problem these days is lead pulling, jumping up, and aggression with other dogs.
"We treat dogs as teddy bears and in many ways there's nothing wrong with that, we're all guilty of doing it.
"We try and put our own stamp on a dog though, people ask me what breed of dog they should go for and it's not about that."
