Green Dogs Conservation

End of the day walk, just being dogs. I'm a firm believer in dogs that are physically and mentally healthy performing better. They work hard...they deserve it! They did, however, all come home smelling of warthog...

The new crew...Penny and Bobby. It's always fun developing young dogs and these two are just fabulous. They both love their balls, but even more importantly they LOVE to search.

So as part of our throwbacks, I thought I would include our work on Riverine Rabbits. Way back in 2011 we did some work for the EWT surveying south of the Outeniqua Mountains in the area around Barrydale and Montague. Pretty much all the work done on this species until that point had been done around Loxton. It was a new survey area and we learned a lot from it. Run totally independently from each other, both dogs indicated on hillsides, which was not considered Riverine Rabbit habitat. We followed up with camera traps, which confirmed the dogs were right, and an individual rabbit was physically trapped at the site the dogs both indicated on, allowing for genetic samples to be taken. It was a new area to survey and we found and confirmed new findings with the dogs. With a name like Bunolagus monticularis, it suggests that their tendency to go up hillsides was known at some point, but got lost along the way somewhere. I have still never been to Loxton, but I hear it is lovely.

Lots of new smells in the bush but totally focused when the ball comes out. I'm very excited to work with him.

We have a new team member! Introducing Vom Haus Harrock Bobby. He is spectacular and I am really looking forward to working with him!

20 Years! It is actually a little more, but it's 20 years that I have been working with Conservation Dogs in many countries in Southern Africa, and have had the opportunity to work on some incredible projects in stunningly beautiful places with fantastic people. Some projects have been my own, and some in partnership with a wide variety of passionate conservation organisations. Geographically, the projects have stretched from Barrydale to Senga Bay (but watch this space for later this year...) and I have learned so much along the way. I'm going to share a few flashbacks, but this guy was my first Conservation Detection Dog. Snoopy was fabulous and bore the brunt of all my terrible handling and taught me a huge amount. I started with him finding Cheetah kills because the Brown Hyenas kept eating my data if they got there first. I needed bones from legs to quantify the fat content in bone marrow to assess body condition of prey. The Hyenas were welcome to the rest. A random sighting of a Cheetah eating a Scrub Hare whole showed me that I needed to find s**t, so that was where that journey started...

Hobbies outside of work include dunking as much of her face underwater as possible and yoga...

Another sleeping dog photo....largely because when she is awake, Penny is mostly moving at high speed! She was sleeping off an outing to Lajuma Research Centre where I gave a talk to the students on the statistics bootcamp. I promise moving dog photos soon!

Tough life of working dogs!