Drug-busting black Labrador crowned Britain's top prison dog
By James Smith 1st Dec 2025
Meet Britain's best prison pooch - a tennis ball-loving black Labrador that can sniff drugs out of any line-up.
Eric, aged three-and-a-half, was voted top dog at the HMPPS Dog Trial Finals earlier this year.
He and handler Charlie Mullard, 38, competed in a series of trials and came out ahead of more than 200 other duos.
Across two days in Warwickshire, pooch Eric had to correctly identify drugs in possession of people in a line-up, before another round where he had to avoid tasty distractions to find drugs in 16 different pots.
In the final portion, Eric worked alongside Charlie to sniff out as many drugs as he could on a rack loaded with overalls in just one minute and 30 seconds.
Teams making false identifications, or going against proper procedure, would receive penalties before receiving their final score – when Charlie found out they'd won all three disciplines: operational search, scent recognition, and search.
The handler said: "I just wanted to get to the finals – if I came eighth I could still say I was in the top eight in the country, I'd be over the moon with that.
"I didn't try to put too much pressure on myself – to find out I had won, I was gobsmacked.
"I knew he was capable, but there were some very strong dogs that were competing as well. I was very, very proud."
Eric usually works at HMP Pentonville and lives with Charlie in Harlow, north London.
The dog handler of eight years said that Eric is 'as good as gold' and 'loves his tennis balls' when he's off the job at home and away from work.
On the job, however, he's all business.
Charlie added: "We'll predominantly search in search areas – we don't work in cells or anything like that.
"A lot of our work is searching officers, staff, contractors, legal visitors, and social visitors – family members of prisoners and things like that.
"At work he's a very, very calm dog – not much phases him, he's very relaxed.
"He's just a very calm dog inside.
"Nothing really affects him too much, he's very responsive to me, and not much gets past him."
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