Detection Puppy Raising Questions with Meg Barnes from Detection for Good

In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla answers some questions from Patron Meg! We discuss when and how to introduce alerts, target odors, and a variety of life skills. We also talk about whether or not sports and other “hobbies” may harm your detection K9’s performance and much more. Science Highlight: Search strategies for conservation detection dogs Links Mentioned in …

Why Do Conservation Detection Dogs Make False Alerts?

In January 2022, the K9 Conservationists Team was hired to come to Kenya to help with a struggling conservation detection dog program. Action for Cheetahs in Kenya has two experienced detection dogs paired with two very green handlers. Our job was to help mentor the handlers and create new best practices for the program going forward. One of the most …

Training an “All Clear” for Detection Dogs with Paul Bunker of Chiron K9

In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla speaks with Paul Bunker about all clear procedures. Science Highlight: An assessment of the effects of habitat structure on the scat finding performance of a wildlife detection dog What is an all-clear response? What is a go-no-go response? What’s a situation we may want to teach this for? What components make for a …

Fringe Alerts with Stacy Barnett

In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla talks to Stacy Barnett about fringe alerts in detection dogs.  Episode suggestion: Get up and go for a little walk! What is fringing? When a dog alerts to odor outside of the preferred range of where the indication should be, aka too far away The final response begins where sourcing ends, so with …