Scruff, a thirteen year-old border collie, spent his whole life chasing sticks. However, his owners, David and Yvonne, were advised by their vet to stop throwing him sticks, as they could cut his mouth. That didn’t stop Scruff’s natural instincts, however. Instead, Scruff replaced the sticks with plastic bottles.
“He would see a bottle that somebody had tossed out, and he’d go pick it up, play with it, then drop it and leave it,” Yvonne said.
“We’d praise him and he’d go look for another one, but we started to feel bad about leaving the bottles,” David added. “Even though they weren’t ours to begin with, we thought of it as littering.”
Instead of leaving the bottles behind, Yvonne and David came up with the idea of recycling them instead. They started to bring cloth sacks on walks with them, and grabbed every plastic bottle that Scruff brought to them.
In 2022, Scruff managed to retrieve over a thousand bottles -1334 to be exact. Many thanks to Scruff, a true environmental hero!
Scruff’s finds are regularly posted to David’s Facebook page with the hashtag #scruffsbottlepatrol.