A two-year-old dog named Molly is the world’s first cat detection(探测) dog. Molly works for the Pet Detectives, based in Guildford, England. Her job is to find and save missing cats.

Firm director Colin Butcher came up with the idea in 2014 because he was getting lots of phone calls about missing cats for a week. “I worked in the police as a detective inspector for many years, and had seen dogs search for drugs and bombs and help with murder investigations(凶杀调查),” Butcher said. “I thought, if a dog can be trained to find cats, it will help people a lot.”

Butcher saved Molly after seeing an ad on Gumtree that “needs a good home, cannot cope”. She had three owners in the last two years. After eight months of training with other detection dogs, Molly became an expert in finding missing cats. “We give her a scent sample(气味样本) from the house where the cat usually lives, and then she’s trained to match that,” explained Butcher. “It only needs to be a little scent too.”

Molly has helped save 11 cats so far this year. “Many people say that training a dog to save cats is   ▲     and they think all dogs run after cats to catch them but can’t find them,” Butcher said. “People are surprised when they watch Molly at work. She still doesn’t know those things with four legs that she searches for are called cats. To her, it is just her favorite game.”