Almost being euthanized dog, now becoming a hero who fights against poaching

The shelter is always shrouded in a layer of gray emotions.

This is a space of noise and death. A puppy named Ruger hid in the corner, sensitive and slightly hostile to perceive the outside world.

Roger once had a home, but the owner brutally killed a dog, Roger escaped, but his vision was damaged. In addition to physical defects, Roger is also easy to bite, which makes almost no family willing to adopt it.

Ruger is a string of a Labrador retrospective dog and a German Shepherd | The Guardian

With the increase of stray animals, the balance of the shelter has gradually become scarce. Those dogs who have come to the shelter very early, if they have not been adopted, life can only end with euthanasia. In the United States, about 1.2 million dogs in the shelter are euthanized every year.

However, Rog's life did not stop here. Roger would not expect that a few months later, it became the first anti -poaching working dog in Zambia. Its footprints will spread all over the top of the mountains and the river. It uses its sensitive sense of smell to create one miracle after another.

Parker and WD4C

What changes Roger's fate is a organization called "Working Dogs for Conservation, hereinafter referred to as" WD4C "), and one of its founders Megan Parker.

Parker and another working dog Pepin is training | Wimbergproductions / YouTube

After getting a master's degree in ecology, Parker worked in the American Yellowstone National Park and was responsible for introducing a wolf group. In order to track wolves, they need to locate the excrement of the wolf, but this is not easy. It is necessary to quickly locate the goals in such a large range and minimize the impact of human activities. Parker thinks that the best "candidate" may be dogs.

This is not unreasonable: the dog's sense of smell is very developed, so they have an unusually sensitive sense of smell. They can even distinguish a spoonful of sugar dissolved in the swimming pool.

Dogs have abnormal sensitive smell | thinking

In 2000, Parker and other partners founded WD4C together to train and use dogs to do environmental protection. Different from most of the working dogs that have been carefully matched and trained from childhood, and strictly selected, in addition to being eliminated in the original job, WD4C working dogs are dogs who are halfway from the shelter.

In the shelter, many dogs, including Rogger, have a common feature, that is, their energy is too abundant -the cub period, the active they are lively, smart, and pity; but when they grow up, they grow up, but when they grow up, they grow up. Excessive activeness has a burden on the family, which has become a reason for people to abandon them.

Dogs in the shelter | Mahdikarimi70 / Wikipedia Commons

But in WD4C's view, full of energy is the advantage of dogs. In order to recruit dogs suitable for reconnaissance, the trainers visited many animal shelters with balls and toys to find dogs who were always energetic, self -driving, and obsessed with toys. Roger was noticed by WD4C at this time.

Go to school to learn skills!

Initially, Roger was not the most suitable candidate: it not only had a bad temper, but also refused to enter the cage. Parker was even difficult to bring it to the veterinarian. But Parker never gave up it. She feels that Roger can always become a good working dog.

Parker tried to improve Rog's personality and conducted professional training on it. The main training is to let dogs learn to track the smell.

In the early stage, the trainer will hide the toys and the objects with a target smell in the same place, allowing the dog to establish a relationship between the smell and toys; when the later period, the trainer will separate the smell from the toys, but if the dog finds it After odor, the trainer will still give toys as a reward.

Under this incentive mechanism, dogs can complete specific tasks such as wolf dung and other species through odor.

Working dogs that are being trained | Great Big Story / YouTube

The instructor can also replace different odors. Smart dogs can quickly understand that this is just changing soup without changing medicine, so it is not difficult to light up a new skill tree.

But it ’s like a game of human beings. Often, a hero is often unlocked first, and then playing a few more games to practice heroes; dogs will have similar situations -although they can learn to identify a new smell within a day, But it still takes weeks to consolidate this new skill.

In the field of actual combat, the trainer also needs to try to keep the dog's interest. For some very rare and difficult species, trainers often manually place several samples to prevent dogs from being unhappy because they can't find the goal for too long, and lose their interest in serious work.

In fact, training is two -way: working dogs and trainers need to learn how to cooperate with each other | WD4C

Become Zambia's first anti -poaching work dog

After training for a while, Rog started its first job -in conjunction with a law enforcement forces in Zambia to crack down on poaching.

On the first day of work, Log and soldiers searched the team to pass the level. If you search artificially, a car may take more than an hour, but the dog only takes three or four minutes. Luger, which is searching for target | WD4C

When the vehicle passed in turn, Rogg suddenly sat quietly and stared at one of the cars. This is the "alert" it sends out, indicating that it aware of the target smell. The soldiers immediately opened the door. After some search, they found a match box wrapped in a plastic bag, hiding the bottom fire in it: theft use it to use it to ignite the launch medicine in the machine gun.

After completing the task, Rog will get its beloved toy as a reward | The Guardian

Although Luger's vision was damaged, this defect did not become a stumbling block on its work. Other dogs are easily distracted by the surrounding environment, but Roger can always focus on the smell.

Now, Roger is still working in Zambia, and it is also the first anti -poaching work dog in Zambia. It lives next to the South Lu'an Gua Guo Park, where the illegal temptation, hunting and transactions of wild animals occur every day. Log's task is to find illegal wild animal products such as ivory, rhino horns, as well as smuggling guns and ammunition.

Left: Right: Rugger's colleagues and their trainers | WD4C

The Wang Wang team made great achievements!

WD4C has now trained more than 200 dogs, and their working location spans 15 countries on 5 continents. In addition to Roger's work, the dogs of WD4C are also assigned to prevent invasion and monitor rare species.

WD4C official website work dog work content | wd4c.org

There is a Belgian Marinos dog named Tule, who has served in the US Army Special Forces, but was eliminated because of too gentle temperament and not like to bite. (Probably afraid of being too gentle to the criminal ... In addition, this article also introduces more outrageous police dog elimination.) WD4C uses its characteristics of excitement, lasting, sensitive smell, and arrange it to monitor the Mustela Nigripes. To.

Left: Work carefully! Right: Touch the fish selfie (error) | Elizabeth Stone

Black -foot Itachi was declared extinct, but in 1981, a dog killed a black -footed Itachi in the ranch in Waioming, USA, and people knew that this animal had not yet extinct. Even after 40 years of protection, Black Footachi is still in an endangered state.

The black-footed Itachi currently in the endangered state | USFWS MOUNTAIN-PRAIERIE / WIKIPEDIA Commons

Tu La is a part of protecting the black -footed Itachi. Whenever Turlay tracked the smell of black -footed Itachi, it "informs" the researchers so that they can mark the distribution of species. Without Turlai, researchers can only use cameras and living beast traps to study this kind of ghost creature, and practice has proven that both methods are not very reliable.

Tu Lai in the sun | WD4C

The border shepherd Obee has a "global travel" -style working career.

In Alberta and Montana, it is responsible for monitoring Dreissena PolymorPha and Donkey Mussels (D.bugnsis). These two types of freshwater shells are invasive species, which will block the water pipes and increase the maintenance costs greatly; they will also attach to the docks, ships and anchors to affect normal human activities.

Obi on the lawn | WD4C

In California, Obi monitors the distribution of Vulpes Macrotis Mutica. This kind of fox is only distributed in the St. Huajin Valley, and is in endangered because the habitat is reclaimed as a field. With the help of Obi and other dogs, scientists produced a distributed map of St. Huajinmin Fox; the local government planned the solar project with reference to this map to avoid destroying the remaining habitats.

In North Africa, it assists scientists to count the number of Gorilla Gorilla Diehli. This is a subspecies of Western Gorilla. Due to habitat destruction and hunting, they are the most endangered gorillas.

View left and right slide in turn: Shenba, St. Huajinmin Fox, Cross River Gorilla | Wikipedia Commons

"They love their work very much. When they are out of diligence, you can feel their excitement and happiness, and they truly enjoy such a life." Parker said. For these dogs, the small and small living room is not their ideal destination. Running between the heavens and the earth can fully show the physique and talent given to them.

Born in the science class VS, a monk halfway

In the public impression, the selection of working dogs is often extremely harsh. Not only does it have requirements for varieties and bloodlines, but they also need to receive training from childhood. Will these half -way dogs have a gap with those professional dogs?

In fact, work dog breeding is not to discover excellent individuals, but to improve the entire variety or product, which increases the chance of excellent individuals. During the puppies, dogs cannot fully reflect whether they have the quality of competent work, so cultivating excellent working dogs can reduce the waste of resources caused by the training process. Little Police Dogs from Class | West Midlands Police / Wikipedia Commons

For adult dogs, their quality has been reflected. Whether it is from the "Famous House" of working dogs, as long talent.

But to become a reconnaissance dog for WD4C, you must also go through layer of assessment. In addition to the above indicators, dogs also need to compete in terms of endurance, cooperation ability, confidence, concentration, etc. In view of the time, dogs need to take various transportation at the time of outsourcing, sometimes trucks, helicopters, and even elephants, and their adaptability is particularly important.

If you want to join smoothly, there are many tests | WD4C

What do you do if those dogs who have not passed the assessment? Don't worry, if the dog is not hired in the end, the staff of WD4C will be obliged to find an eternal family for them.

We always remember

On the official website of WD4C, there is a section specially used to commemorate the death of dogs who have died, where they show their photos, names and births of birth and death. Some of them had been harmed by humans, just like Luger mentioned at the beginning. But they ultimately choose to trust human beings, fighting with us on the front line of environmental protection, doing things that look great in us.

These loyal and brave little guys are worthy of being remembered forever, as the poem quoted on the official website said:

When the man woke up, he said, "What is the wild dog doing here?" "His name is no longer a wild dog," the woman replied, "but our most important friend. This identity will always always be Keep until forever. "

Official website to commemorate the dying working dog sector | WD4C

Note: Although a few dogs in the shelter can only be lucky to become a rescue dog, please do not abandon your dog at will. Before breeding, please consider whether it is capable of breeding; after breeding, please always be responsible for it.

references

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/08/ruger-dog-stopped-African-poachers

[2] https://thebark.com/Content/WORKING-dogs-Profile-CO-Founder-Megan- Parker

[3] https://news.mongabay.com/wildtech/2017/12/traying-dETECTION-dogs-For-Conservice/

[4] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/Working-dogs-For-Conservice

[5] He Yong, Hao Wenquan, Chen Zhanjun. The basis for breeding of work dog breeding [J]. Chinese work dog industry, 2017

[6] https://wd4c.org/

[7] https://ideas.nt.com/once-mwanted-dogs-dogs-n- on-front-lines-wildlife- conservation/

Author: Thinking

Edit: Mai Mai

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