Scruff, 13, lives in the town of Nuneaton in central England with his humans Yvonne and David Grant, and enjoys rather an unusual hobby when they got out for their daily walks together.
Scruff has long enjoyed off-leash walks due to his mom's dutiful training and used to participate in the more traditional stick fetching pastime until a vet recommended he stop to avoid getting scratched on the inside of his mouth as he got older.
But Scruff, ever the working dog, still wanted a task. So, he started collecting the plastic bottles he found along his route.
“This is a focus, a job for him,” Yvonne says. “He is a border collie, so he loves to retrieve and collect different things and stuff like that,” she adds. The couple said Scruff usually goes on two walks a day: one long walk in the morning, usually between three and four miles, then a shorter mile or so walk in the evening.
When they realized just how many bottles Scruff was picking up, they started keeping track and sharing their monthly report with the hashtag "#scruffsbottlepatrol" on Yvonne's Facebook page.
So far, they estimate the industrious pup has collected more than 1,000 bottles. They've stored all of them in their backyard and are going to take the hoard to the recycling centre in the New Year.
The recycling efforts of Scruff and the Grants must be applauded. Which is, sadly, less than can be said of the litter-bugs in Nuneaton.