13 Jan 2023
Using sniffer dogs to detect leaks
One of our main focus areas at United Utilities is leakage as we have a target to reduce this by 15% by 2025. We have processes in place to help identify leaks but it’s been proven difficult to locate the leaks within our rural areas. To minimise this problem, we brought in ex-military dogs to try a new way of working. We started by training the dogs with the scent of water in different locations to see if they could detect the scent. After a couple of weeks, the dogs were able to detect leak locations that weren't visible to our engineers. With the amazing work of our sniffer dogs, this has reduced the time it's taken us to find and fix leaks in our rural areas.