Latest News and Updates

What does success really look like - certificates, competitons, or results?

Searching shipping containers with detection dogs can often be a slow and uneventful process, so I was fortunate to document this particular moment.

A major enforcement operation in Walsall uncovered £500,000 worth of illegal tobacco, cigarettes and counterfeit packaging. The raid, part of Operation Shadow, was led by Walsall Council Trading Standards with support from West Midlands Police and specialist detection dogs Griff, Cooper and Bran, trained by international consultant Stu Phillips. The dogs quickly indicated a storage unit, leading officers to 500kg of processed tobacco, 1,000 packets of hand-rolling tobacco, 3,000 cigarettes and counterfeit duty stamps. Two of Stu’s former tobacco dogs are the only tobacco dogs in the world to be awarded medals by the Royal Family, underlining the pedigree behind this success.

Stu Phillips K9 is proud to announce that two of our exceptional detection dogs, Scamp and Yoyo, have been awarded prestigious medals by the British Royal Family and the PDSA—an honour reserved for only the very best.

Devon Trading Standards officers seized illegal tobacco products and vapes with an estimated value of over £166,000 during a joint operation with Devon & Cornwall Police, all thanks to Griff the specialist tobacco detection dog from Pembrokeshire based Stuart Phillips K9. 

On Friday 29th December, Stuart Phillips K9 finished the year with an unexpected trip to Manchester, to join two stars of UK television on the BBC breakfast sofa.

Stuart Phillips and tobacco and vape detection dog Griff joined Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt to talk about recent enforcement operations with Staffordshire Trading Standards. 

Sandwell Council teams and West Midlands Police, supported by Cooper the sniffer dog from Pembrokeshire based Stuart Phillips K9, recently carried out a raid at a shop in West Bromwich. Cooper the Fox red Labrador is one of very few specialist detection dogs in the UK, trained to locate illegal, over-sized vape products, which comes in very handy when retail shops try to hide their illegal vapes in sophisticated concealments.