80 Your Dog November 2017 http://www.yourdog.co.uk“... like an oasis of friendship
in a desert of sadness.”
— CSM Evans, Welsh Guards.travel by helicopter between army bases,
taking his dog’s breakfast in one place,
and jumping aboard to claim his favourite
steak pie supper elsewhere.ACCOLADES
By this time, Rats had become the
longest-serving member of the British
Army in Northern Ireland. In recognition of
his achievement, the ‘soldier dog’ received
the ultimate honour — his own army serial
number: Delta 777. No other dog who
served during the Troubles was given this
recognition. The press hailed him as a ‘war
dog’ and the public called for his heroism
to be further recognised.
Author and dog lover, the late Lesley
Scott-Ordish (founder of the charity now
known as Pets as Therapy), made Rats
the fi rst recipient of her Dog of the Year
award, ‘For valour and life-saving devotion
to duty’. On December 9, 1979, he was
presented with his very special gold medal
in London, posing happily for photographs
alongside celebrities.
Each time Rats appeared on television,
he received sacks of mail. Children sent
him toys, tasty treats, and pocket money;
pensioners sent food, blankets, and
their savings.
At the height of the media attention,
Rats was receiving over 300 letters a day
and two sacks full over Christmas.
Each piece of correspondence was
answered by his fellow soldiers and
signed off with his personal paw print.
He was now a national celebrity with an
international profi le.SAFE AND SOUND
As a publicly crowned British Army
icon, Rats sadly attracted the wrong
kind of attention from the IRA. Death
threats forced the 1st Battalion Welsh
Guards, who were by then responsible for
Rats, to take extra measures to guarantee
his safety.
The day he left Crossmaglen for his gold
medal presentation in London, he was
taken in an unmarked police car with two
police offi cers and two armed soldiers.If he went AWOL from the base for
more than a few hours, a search was
mounted via radio contact so he could be
tracked down and made safe.
The soldier dog was a victim of his own
popularity, but the Welsh Guards weren’t
going to let his story end that way.
After much consideration and veterinary
advice, it was decided to retire Rats for his
own safety to a secret location, where he
could spend his fi nal years as a beloved
family pet.
In dog years, he was probably only inhis mid-50s, but the effects of a long list of
battle scars and tumbles from helicopters
were now catching up with him.
His service in the British Army ended
on a chilly April morning in 1980, with
a full ceremonial retirement parade at the
Guards Depot, Pirbright.
The retiring member of the regiment
took his last salute, old friends saluted him,
and grown men cried with pride.
When asked what he thought of the
little dog, one Guardsman said: “Rats? He
was simply a better soldier than all of us.”Rats enjoyed
a happy retirement.The Welsh Guards
say farewell to Rats.Image: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo.Image: Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy Stock Photo.78-80 Historical-rats CSAM(SW).indd 80 22/09/2017 14:02