The old Viennese couple were desperate. Their life savings had disappeared -- stolen, they thought. But then came Evita de La Basse Autriche, a police dog specialised in sniffing out money.

After the couple had turned their apartment upside down looking for the several thousand euros, Belgian Shepherd Evita came up trumps "within minutes" -- finding the cash stashed away inside a box in a kitchen cupboard, Austrian police said Tuesday.

"All police dogs all have the same basic training to detect different things," police spokesman Paul Eidenberger told AFP."Then they can be specialised, for example for explosives, blood traces -- and also documents and money."