For a great many years now, on a great many searches, the Bolton MRT has called upon the superb Search Dog Team of Handler Iain Nicholson and his specialist Trailing Dog Mij, both of Bowland Pennine MRT / SARDA Wales.

We are sad to report today that after seven years on operations and with over 200x operational searches undertaken together, many leading directly to the successful location of the missing person, Iain has decided to officially retire Mij from ‘active duty.’

As Mij was the only active Trailing Dog operational in England, it is timely that Handler Steve Nelson and his Trailing Dog Boris, successfully passed their assessment to go ‘operational’ on Friday 23rd March 2012 (See website ‘News’ report dated the same)

For those following the ‘Trailing Dog’ story from Friday’s report, this now means Steve and Boris are the only Trailing Dog team now operational in England. (One team is also operational in Wales)

The Bolton MRT membership would like to thank Iain Nicholson and of course Trailing Dog Mij, for all their assistance on searches over the last few years with us at all times of the day and night, in all weathers, workday, evening and weekend.

Iain has always responded to our calls for assistance, with never a word of complaint despite the vast majority of calls never being at a ‘convenient time !’

Word has it Iain will not have an easy retirement, as his wife Alison, still remains an operational SARDA Handler with air scenting Search Dog Floss, guess who the ‘Navigator’ will be on future searches ?