Published: Friday, April 24, 2009 | 11:13 AM ET
Canadian Press NewsItem/NewsComponent/NewsLines/ByLine
LONDON - A medal awarded to a dog who sniffed out survivors amid the rubble of the Blitz has been sold at auction in London for 24,250 pounds.
The buyer at the sale at Spink auctioneers chose to remain anonymous. The sale price, equivalent to C$43,300, was 10,000 pounds higher than the estimate.
It also beat the previous record of 23,000 pounds for the Dickin Medal awarded to Simon, the ship's cat on HMS Amethyst.
The Dickin Medal, Britain's highest honour for animals, was awarded to a dog named Rip who was credited with finding more than 100 people trapped by German bomb damage during the Second World War.
Maria Dickin, who established the medal program, decorated Rip in 1945.
Rip had been found abandoned in an air raid shelter and was adopted by an air raid warden. He died in 1948 and is buried in a pet charity cemetery in east London.
Besides Rip and Simon, the 62 animals awarded the Dickin Medal include other dogs, pigeons and horses.
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