³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Your dog might be good at fetching sticks when you throw them, but how good are they are collecting litter?

Well, border collie Scruff has been called an "eco-dog" after helping to clear up at least 1,000 plastic bottles on walks this year.

His owners Yvonne and David, who live in Nuneaton in Warwickshire, gather them up and then take them to the recycling centre at the end of the year.

Scruff even has his own social media page called Scruffs Bottle Patrol to show off his efforts to keep the streets clean and tidy.

But his owners say they didn't teach their dog to pick up bottles - he did it himself.

Yvonne said: "He'll see [a bottle] on the other side of the road and look at me as if to say, 'Can I get it?"

Yvonne and her husband David said that about a year ago, they realised that while Scruff would pick up a bottle he would then drop it when he found the next one.

"It seemed wrong that he would pick the bottle up and then drop it again - we thought people would think we were dropping litter," said Yvonne.

"So we got him to start bringing the bottles to us and we put them in a bag and then count them up at the end of the walk - I'd say he will have collected at a least 1,000 this year."

The couple's friends have also seen Scruff's environmentally-friendly actions for themselves.

Their neighbour Caroline also sometimes goes for a walk with Scruff, and says he "will not go past a bottle without picking it up - he's so intelligent".

He also picks up litter in the countryside too!

She added: "If you're in a field with him, he will be off the lead and away, and when he comes back he will always have [a] bottle in his mouth."

Although his owners are very proud to have such a helpful dog, they say they wish people had a message for the people of Nuneaton: "Just don't chuck things down in the first place!"