CONSERVATION DOGS, 2: What it takes to become a 
conservation detection dog ... ahead on Passport to Texas.

This is Passport to Texas

Working Dogs for Conservation in Bozeman, Montana 
trains dogs to help researchers in the field. 

05 -- One in fifteen hundred dogs that we screen has what it 
takes to be a conservation detection dog.

Some of the program animals are rescues. Pete Coppolillo 
[KO-poe-lihl'-oh], Executive Director, says they train the 
dogs to detect everything from scat, to live animals, to 
invertebrates, and even invasive weeds.

12 -- We select for high drive so that they'll want to do it and 
work really hard at it. And we also select for dogs that are toy 
obsessed - that are really excited about a specific toy. And 
that's their reward, and that's also how we train them.

At the time we spoke, Working Dogs for Conservation had 
just deployed animals to Africa to help fight the illegal 
ivory trade. Pete told me how they used toys to train the 
dogs for that assignment.

22 -- The ivory dogs were trained by hiding ivory with their toy. 
So, they'll come in and they'll sniff around and they'll begin to 
associate the scent of ivory with their toy. And as soon as they 
discover the toy is sitting right behind the ivory, and they get a 
big whiff of ivory and then they get their toy - and so they get 
their reward. And then, gradually we separate the toy from the 
ivory; they learn as soon as they find it they get their toy and 
their reward.

Tomorrow: some positive results of working the dogs.

That's our show for today ... Funding provided in part by 
Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram 

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti. 




Total sound bite time:		 0:39.0
Maximum Script time:		 0:46.0 Suggested show time: 85.0 = 1:25