A medal awarded to a dog named Rip in July of 1945 for “locating many air raid victims during the (London) Blitz of 1940,” sold at auction in London on Friday, April 24, 2009, fetching a record price of more than £24,250 ($35,594). In the United Kingdom, the Dickin Medal is the animal equivalent of the military’s Victoria Cross.
Rip was a scruffy stray terrier when he was adopted by an Air Raid Precaution (ARP) Warden, E. King, who was on duty in East London. Rip became the ARP team’s mascot. Although he was not trained for search and rescue, Rip began digging instinctively. When he had located a victim in the rubble, he paused and alerted Mr. King. Rip is credited with finding more than 100 air raid victims.
The Dickin Medal was introduced in 1943 by Maria Dickin, the founder of People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), UK’s leading veterinary charity. The medal has been awarded to 62 animals between 1943 and 2007, including 32 World War II messenger pigeons, three horses, 26 dogs and one cat, the ship’s mascot of HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze Incident in 1949. Some of the recent recipients have served bravely with British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
See Also:
Medal for Dog Rip, Who Saved 100 People, Fetches 24,250 Pounds [Bloomberg.com; April 24, 2009]
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