Therapy dog who helped calm Southport first responders to appear at Crufts

A therapy dog who has spent the last year bringing smiles to the faces of police officers and first responders involved in the Southport attack will now put its skills to the test at Crufts.

Dennis, a Shiba Inu, is a former show dog turned four legged therapist and has spent seven months working with police officers who responded to the Hart Street tragedy.

Now Dennis and owner Karen Jones, from Wigan, will head to the 2025 Crufts showcase to turn their attention to making judges smile instead.

Karen told journalists: “We’ve recently done a lot of work on the Southport attack case which is very raw at the moment.

“We have done a couple of hundred hours there, from visiting the call handlers who took the initial 999 calls to the response officers who were the first on the scene.

“His name is Dennis the Menace for a reason, he is just so naughty, but I made him up to be a champion,” she said.

“If somebody wants cheering up and wants laughing, he is the one to do that. He’ll go in and pinch the dinner the police officers give us, or jump up and get what whatever in on the desk.”

Dennis will now head to Birmingham this coming March after initially having retired from his showman days.

“When he was younger he was a champion winning dog and he got six or seven reserve challenge certificates,” Karen said.

“He loved it, but I couldn’t get him to be sensible for five minutes so I retired him about four years ago, and then last year I decided to bring him out again,