First of all I must come clean with my bias - I love dogs - always have. When I was a child we had the runt from a litter of labradors - Brandy - and he was my best friend. Now, many (too many) years later I am living with a dog again, we have taken on Ogli, a lovely old boy rescued from Romania by the amazing charity Active Animals Rescue and Rehabilitation - these updates only let me post a single photograph so you don't get to see the gorgeous bear-dog that is Ogli! 

But back to hedgehogs and Henry. Henry is a remarkable dog - he is a specialist sniffer dog who has been trained to find hedgehogs. And he is a proof of concept that could result in a massive change in the fate of our hedgehogs. 

I have not met Henry, yet. He has been trained by Louise Wilson of Conservation K9 Consultancy and has been working with my friend and colleague Lucy Bearman-Brown. Lucy is a Senior Lecturer at Hartpury University - I have lectured for her on many occasions - and she is also doing a PhD on hedgehogs. And one part of her research is looking at the feasibility of using dogs to find hedgehogs.

Why should we be looking for hedgehogs with dogs? Because hedgehogs are hard to find - especially during the day when they are sleeping away in their nests. And it is during the day that we need to be able to find them.

So - in relation to the petition - Lucy and Henry are crucial. This petition has already made great changes in the way developers approach hedgehog highways. But if developers move into an area and wipe it clean of life as they start to build ... and then claim brownie points (well, greeny points I suppose) because they have hedgehog highways - then that is nonsense - it is Greenwash. 

At the moment the law does not protect hedgehogs (please sign THIS PETITION to help change that!) enough to ensure developers search for them and move them to safety. And also developers point out that it is near impossible to find the hogs anyway ... but not now! Taking Henry around a site during the day will enable hedgehogs to be moved to safety before the machinery arrives. 

For now there is only Henry - but the proof that he works is enough to get other people thinking about this problem. I really hope that we will see more care being taken of our wonderful hedgehog - and wonder-dogs like Henry will be part of the solution.

In other news - THANK YOU - to the many people who have rated and reviewed my latest book (which includes a photo of Henry!) - it is not just my ego that benefits, but also the amount of attention the book gets as the algorithms kick into play (please buy from local book shop if you can).

And thank you to the moderators of the Hedgehog Highway Facebook Group who are working so hard to keep the space friendly ... PLEASE use the group if you have questions ... the communication via this page is clunky at best.

More soon ...