Neil Powell

Neil has been married to Kate for over 40 years and has two daughters, Clair and Emma and four grand children, Sean, Niamh, Nathan and Jake. In addition to training and working with search dogs in mountain rescue, drowned victim location, explosives and drugs, Neil was the first in the world to train DVD detection dogs for the Motion Pictire Association of America. Lucky and Flo, the first two labradors, were followed by Paddy and Manny, all of whom successfully located millions of dollars worth of pirated DVDs. So succesful were they, that a bounty was placed on their heads by the pirates and indeed, one of the dogs died suddenly in 'mysterious' circumstances. Neil was also the first person to introduce the Search and Rescue Dog Association to Ireland where it is now split into two groups, one in the North and the other in the South. He was the first search dog handler and trainer to teach search dogs to return to their handler on finding a casualty and then to bring the handler back to that casualty, often more than a kilometre away. Prior to this, all search dogs had been trained to remain with a casualty barking at them until the handler arrived. Neil knew this was not just potentially frightening for an already stressed casualty but was often ineffective due to wind noise or distance. He was also the first to introduce drowned search dog training in the UK with his dog Cuisle, despite great hostility, but helping to bring closure to grieving families. Since then he has trained five drowned victim search dogs, all of whom have located people who lost their lives in water. Neil has now completed a PhD in Biological Studies in which he examined the untrained response of pet dogs to epileptic seizure onset. This has revealed a reliable method for training dogs to detect seizures up to an hour before they arrive, an outcome which he hopes will save lives and reduce the serious injuries often associated with the unexpected onset of seizures.