FORMER high flying financial executive Steve Wood swapped number crunching for life pounding the streets as Hyndburn’s dog warden. Six years on and the father and grandfather-of-five, who lives in Rishton with his wife Susan, says it has been the best decision he's ever made. The 53-year-old, dubbed Doctor Dolittle for his whimsical ways with animals, tells of the trials and tribulations of life as a dog warden.

Q. What time do you get up?

A. It varies day to day because I do split shifts. No one day is ever the same - sometimes I start at 8am, 10am or 1pm. I don't do nine till five so I can be on the park either in the morning or at 10pm and I work weekends. Dog fouling is the biggest gripe for the general public. It's the one thing that is complained about the most to the council so it's my job to do something about it. We have various tactics and even use state-of-the-art technology to catch people who let their dogs foul at night time by using a night vision camera.

Q. What's your daily routine?

A. Six years ago I decided to make the move from a financial executive to becoming a dog warden as part of a lifestyle change. I was too stressed I was coming home at night and very unhappy. But when I wake up I the morning now I have a smile on my face - and that's not because of the woman lying next to me! But joking apart I love my job and wouldn't swap it for the world as there's so much variety.

One day I can be in the schools educating children about the dangers of Toxicara - a dog-bourne parasite that causes blindness - a serious issue that needs highlighting as two children every week go blind because of irresponsible dog owners and on another day I can be out on patrol, microchipping or responding to an incident. I'm on call 24 hours a day so I'm always available. Apart from I'm abroad but even then people try and ring me. I had six work related calls while on holiday in Crete this year but I don't mind.

Q. What do you love about the role?

A. It's so rare when we actually pick up dogs but it's always nice to be able to re-unite them with their owners or find them a foster home through the charity I set up - Hyndburn Stray Dogs in Need. Dogs shouldn't be out on their own as its causing an offence and could cause an accident so for safety reasons we pick them up but we're not 'dog catchers' like some people think.

Before I set up the charity we only got £27.50 for each dog to give them any treatment they might need but through the charity no matter what treatment it needs we have the money to pay for it.

Our motto is 'Giving Stray Dogs a Second Chance' and if that's my only legacy then I'm proud of it. We help around 300 dogs a year and its only in extreme circumstances on the recommendation of a vet that we ever have to put them down. We have even got a man from Liverpool who can take the 'mad' and 'bad' dogs who you couldn't put with a family. He has connections with the American military who use the very aggressive dogs as guard dogs in the terror camps in Cuba and places like that. He also has contacts with the British Police and Malaysian Police.

Q. What's the strangest thing you have ever had to do?

A. I had a phone call at 3am one morning off the police saying two rottweilers were running a mock in Huncoat killing geese and chickens after they'd escaped from their home. When I got there there were about six police cars and lots of residents out on the streets.

The dogs were down in some pens. I asked if anybody had been near them and nobody had because of the fear factor. I have a rottweiler so I went down and saw them. I said in a stern voice 'come here, what have you been up to?' they were both cowering and knew they had done wrong. They walked with me up to the van and got in. They did everything they were told. All it needed was one of them to say 'ey come here' because they got carried away having a bit of fun and it needed somebody to take control.

I was named Doctor Dolittle in the local press because I knew how to talk to the animals so I thought that was quite funny. I think the owner was given a caution and they were taken home.

On a sad note the RSPCA phoned me and said somebody had dumped a 15-year-old beautiful white boxer. I picked it up and took it to the vet to have it checked over but it had high blood pressure, heart and liver conditions. It had come to the end of its life and it was really suffering so the vet said it would have to be put down.

It had lived somewhere for 15 years, probably with a family and they left it at the moment it needed help the most and just dumped it. That was heart breaking I had to sit there and hold its head and talk to it while it was put to sleep and all I was thinking was 'where are your family?' they should have been there for him.

Q. What has been your proudest moment?

A. Winning the Post National Pet Competition 2003 for animal welfare. We were up against the country's biggest organisations like the RSPCA and the National Canine Defence League and the charity I started actually won. Both myself and the charity's secretary Georgina Allem couldn't believe it. It was such a prestigious accolade to win we were over the moon.

Q. What's the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

A. You can't reason with unreasonable people. You just have to move on, it's not worth having confrontations with people. I sometimes get people threatening me but I don't rise to it. I was given that piece of advice by a friend who is a sergeant at Blackburn police station and it's true and I've always kept that in mind whatever situation I have been in. I once had to go into a house at the request of the police after the owner of a house had died and the dog was guarding its territory.

I had to use a grasper - a pole with a loop to get the dog out - without it having chance to bite me. I had to drag it into the van because it wouldn't move. The neighbours were shouting that it was cruel because the dog wasn’t normally aggressive but I have been bitten by dogs only twice in the past because I let my guard down and I know now that when a dog feels threatened and vulnerable it goes back to being a wolf and becomes aggressive. People might think it's cruel but it's not - it soon calmed down when it realised I wasn't there to hurt it.