Lessons and reflections on starting a dog handler career

Dog handler technical report January 2024

Introduction:
This technical finding outlines the journey of Karin Bos from a 38-year nursing career to full time detection dog handler with Pest Free Banks Peninsula (PFBP). We hope that this honest journey Karin went (and is still going through) supports others embarking on the same pathway and accelerates their learnings for the benefit of all Predator Free 2050 projects throughout Aotearoa. Now twelve months into caring and running three detection dogs at PFBP which specialise in detecting hedgehogs and feral cats. Karins hard work, openness to learning and being highly connected with the landscape is enabling PFBP to locate, record pest animal presence and remove notoriously difficult pests from Kaitorete to secure, restore and sustain native biodiversity.

Karin captured her journey beautifully and in remarks to a colleague recently where Karin said ‘I have made plenty of mistakes, which to me are fabulous “knowledge deficits” that can be changed into “knowledge gained”, which in turn got me to where I am today.’

Karins Journey:
To supercharge PFBP dog handling team, contractors were used to train detection dogs to the highest standard before the dogs were transitioned over to a PFBP dog handler. PFBP used the highly capable and very experienced Billy Barton from Lake Hāwea (who sourced and trained PFBP dogs) rather than the traditional model of the dog owner/handler training the detection dog from puppyhood. In early December 2022, Karin made her way to Billy’s property fully ready to make the most of her weeklong intensive ‘crash course’ detection dog training. Billy used a good combination of practical work with the dog and technical information sharing on the how, why and when of pest detection work and equipment used. There is so much to learn when becoming a detection dog handler, much more that Karin had initially imagined!

While at Billys, Karin covered the following subjects:

• How to work a detection dog, how to follow, how to direct, how to correct and how to help the dogs search.
• The use of GPS units to track and locate the dogs through the ‘hunt’, how to add waypoints and how to use the GPS unit so guide decisions such as to bring the dog back closer to the handler.
• Training the dog on their target species, using scent containers, rewards and cues.
• looking after your scent training equipment and eliminating the contamination of the samples and equipment.
• Undertaking non-target training in the field.
• Day to day organising of the workstream with one or more working detection dogs targeting different pests.
• When to use different search patterns in the different landscapes and target pest species encountered.
• How scent behaves in different weather conditions (wind, temperature, humidity).
• Ability to read the landscape, where are the target species and how are they moving through the landscape to increase dog detection events.
• Dog welfare needs such as hair, nails, feet, teeth, daily checks.
• What are the weekly training needs for each animal.
• Safety around toxins, traps and vehicles.
• Safety around native wildlife including kiwi and penguin aversion training.
• Random dog equipment like jackets, muzzles, harnesses, collars and leads, sample bags, tether and treats!
• Dog first aid : what equipment to carry, what to have at home.
• What to do in an emergency.
• Off duty routine and care.
• The difference between “leave it” and “let’s go”, dog psychology.

Following this first week with Billy and the dogs at Lake Hāwea, Billy and the dogs were brought up to Banks Peninsula to spend another week with Karin. This reinforced all of the above while also exposing Billy and the dogs to the landscape and subsequent challenges we would face. At the end of this trip, Billy was confident in Karins ability and decided to leave Nighdee behind as a trial, this occurred in January 2023.

Nighdee, an experienced hedgehog and cat detection dog knew her job well. This gave Karin an excellent opportunity to start working a dog in the field while getting to understand the challenges of becoming a dog handler without the risk of ‘breaking’ the younger PFBP detection dogs Bob and Terry. Karin, an experienced horse rider summarised beautifully “In natural horsemanship we have this saying ‘green on green makes black and blue’ and I’m sure that this principle also applies to dog handling”.