HYNDBURN’S first ‘doggy detective’ has felt their first collar.

Earlier this year, the council became the first in the north west to launch a radical ‘pooper snooper’ scheme, which sees residents paid for helping catch those who let their dogs foul in public.

Amateur sleuths were asked to take pictures of the guilty parties, before getting their address and reporting them to the council.

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The move came after the number of fixed penalty notices issued to pet owners in the borough dwindled from 39 in 2006 to eight last year, despite 269 complaints from residents. Environmental iss-ues boss Paul Cox praised the unnamed resident who nab-bed the careless pet walker.

He said: “This is great news and I’d like to thank this civic-minded resident. We take a pro-active approach to dog fouling, but we can’t have a dog warden on every street corner.

“In this case, the resident declined to accept the £50 reward but the reward is there and available as a payment taken from income based on successful prosecutions.

Hyndburn Council’s scheme followed in the footsteps of Stafford Council, which prom-ised a £75 reward for reporting dog fouling in December. Waltham Forest Council, in London, and Narberth, in Pembrokeshire, Wales, also launched similar schemes.

To qualify for the reward, residents must take a picture of a dog fouling, another of it leaving the site with its owner, and a third of the muck once they’ve left.