YOUNG sea-dog Rommel is making a splash with his nose for trouble.

For the Blackpool-based police dog has proved he can sniff out a drowned body many times quicker than a human diver.

The six-year-old German Shepherd and his handler, PC John Pemberton, are part of an elite Lancashire team being funded by the Home Office to research the technique of underwater body detection.

In charge of the year-long trial is Blackpool's Sgt Mick Swindells, who uses his own dog, Lee, along with Rommel and Preston-based Tess with handler PC Brian Sanderson.

Other dogs are also being tried out.

Sgt Swindells explained how the research is conducted, using the bodies of dead piglets left underwater at sites round Lancashire for several days.

"We ride the dogs in the front of a boat, and when they detect a body, they become agitated," he said.

"We work in conjunction with the Lancashire and Cumbria Underwater Search Unit, who then send down a diver.

"In one search last week it took the dogs 14 minutes to locate a body, which would probably have taken five divers a day and a half to find."

No-one is quite sure yet what the dogs are picking up, whether it is the gases from decomposition or perhaps skin or clothing particles.

Whatever it is, the money and time-saving benefits are obvious, which is why Sgt Swindells is this week in Portsmouth, lecturing senior officers from all over the country on the trial, which finishes next March.

Sgt Swindells was first shown the technique in Colorado, America, three years ago, but the work was unresearched.

He is taking a more scientific approach, investigating the dogs' performance in different types of water - lakes, reservoirs, rivers, estuaries and sea-water - and at different temperatures.

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