Green Adelaide Podcast
Do you want or have a career in South Australia’s environmental sector? Then this podcast is for you!
Green Adelaide Podcast
Ep 14: w/ Mandy Jones | Conservation & Detection Dogs SA + dogs + detecting endangered or pest species + springer spaniels + rigorous training + conservation work + real-world conservation challenges
You are listening to the Green Adelaide Podcast. I am your host, Melissa Martin. Welcome to episode 14. We are in season 2 of the pod and we are talking dogs.
Not just any dogs, we are specifically talking about dogs who do conservation work for Adelaide’s environment.
I am joined by one of Adelaide’s leading conservation and detection dog handlers and trainers Mandy Jones.
Mandy owns and runs her business called Conservation and Detection Dogs SA. Head to the website: conservationdog.com.au
Her dogs are expertly trained to detect a variety of scents, including those of lizards, butterflies, and the locations of feral animal homes like fox dens.
This podcast is your insider scoop on all things cool, green, and wild in metro South Australia.
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I want more dogs out there, more handlers out there. I want it to be more widely recognised that dogs are a valuable tool in the search for endangered or invasive animals.
Melissa Martin:You are listening to the Green Adelaide Podcast. I am your host, melissa Martin, and welcome to episode 14. We are in season two of the pod and we are talking dogs, not just any dogs. We are specifically talking about dogs who do conservation work for Adelaide's environment. I am joined by one of Adelaide's leading conservation and detection dog handlers and trainers, Mandy Jones. Mandy owns and runs her business called Conservation and Detection Dogs SA. Her dogs are expertly trained to detect a variety of scents, including those of lizards, butterflies and the location of feral animal homes like Foxton's. She is passionate about understanding each dog's unique personality, motivations and helping owners connect deeply with their pets. Welcome, mandy, to the Green Adelaide Podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Oh, thank you so much for having me. So before we dive all into your work with Conservation Dogs, let's get to know you and how you ended up establishing your business. Can you tell us about your career journey to the environmental industry? Where did you start?
Mandy Jones:Yeah, so it's kind of a bit of a curvy kind of process. I'm a trained vet nurse and a pet dog trainer. I was working in the veterinary nurse industry and I wanted to do something with my dog but I didn't know what I wanted to do. Then we had a little field trip out to a search and rescue group with the vets team and I'm like, oh, search and rescue, looking for missing people, this is really cool.
Mandy Jones:Went down that track, did search and rescue for a number of years with previous dog, and then I'm like we don't have luckily we don't have the disasters that overseas have with, you know, earthquakes, that type of thing, and I thought, oh, we're probably not going to get used that much in that capacity.
Mandy Jones:So what else can I do with my dog? I have a high drive, high energy dog that needs a job. So just Googling one day, as you do, came across conservation dogs working in the UK and I'm like this is it, this is what I want to do. And I was absolutely fascinated, googled a bit more, found a few more people and then set about searching for a dog that I could actually use successfully in conservation. And then, yeah, just have been slowly, slowly plugging away at getting my skills up today, getting my dog's skills, working out how to do everything you know checking out things in the environment endangered species, invasive species, all that type of thing, and that you know. It's been a slow process but it's been really valuable process because I've had the time to check everything out and understand everything and then I realised there's no one here in Adelaide doing it at that time. So it's been slowly forming over probably about seven years.
Melissa Martin:And so your dogs? Are they dogs where they're yours and they live with you, or they're yours but they live somewhere else? Or yeah, tell me how that works.
Mandy Jones:Yep, so I've got my two dogs, um, nessie and Hetty. They're my dogs, they live with me, they rule my house. And then we've got Badger, who belongs to my dad and mum. He lives in their house, which we're all on the same sort of property. And then my daughter has a Nessie daughter and she lives with her. Yeah, and we're all just that team. Yeah, and what breed are they? We've got two English Springer Spaniels, or three, sorry, three English Springer Spaniels and two Cocker Spaniels.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, yeah, is it? Obviously the Spaniel is the dog to go for.
Mandy Jones:I actually really love the spaniels. I've always loved spaniels. I like them because they have the energy, they love to have something to do, so they really enjoy working. They love sniffing Like that would be their favourite thing above anything is sniffing and they've just got the best personalities you know. They're smart, they're clever, they learn things really, really quickly, but they will work their little heart out for you.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, and you talk us through a little bit. You were a vet nurse working in South Australia and I guess you saw you were saying how you wanted to work with dogs but you didn't know exactly what you wanted to do. How do you get into dog training? Because I feel like I have a dog and I've been to dog training for my dog, but you know, then there's a time where you're like I can't be bothered going anymore. Yeah, Talk us through just how you just went from training your dog to like this is my business, I'm a dog trainer. Yeah, you just went from training your dog to like this is my business, I'm a dog trainer.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, so yeah, with the search and rescue doing that, that opened my eyes to a lot of what the dogs need to know, what the handler needs to know. Then I'm like, okay, I've got to improve myself. I've got to improve my skill set and my understanding. I've always been fascinated by dog body language and you know how they communicate with each other and the tiny little ear lift that means so much to another dog. Or you know the little lip lift or whatever. So that's always fascinated me. So I set about getting a diploma in dog behaviour and science technology. So I got that.
Mandy Jones:While I was doing that, that probably took me about a year and a half to complete. I'm like I need more hands-on skills. So I volunteered for a local pet dog training organisation. So I did that probably for about three years, increased my skills, increased my knowledge, and then I felt better able to share that knowledge with other people in conjunction with the search and rescue, but also outside of the organization. I ran puppy school at the local vet clinic. I work at that.
Mandy Jones:Just all those little steps really increased all my knowledge, got my hands on as many dogs as I possibly could, because every dog is different, just like every person is different. Then I also had to concentrate not on just training the dog, training the human aspect of that dog team, so that's probably harder than training dogs. Of course, the humans are always way harder. And, yeah, now in our little search and rescue organisation that we've got, I also help instruct the newcomers coming in and existing teams. And you know just, I read, I watch so many, you know podcasts and read so many books and webinars and I'm just constantly absorbing every bit of information I can to help me and my dogs. I want me and my dogs and my team to be the best that we possibly can be.
Melissa Martin:But what drew you to the field, to be to work with animals, I guess more generally.
Mandy Jones:I've always loved animals, always been surrounded by dogs, even growing up as a little girl in the UK always had dogs. We moved out here when I was about eight years old, brought our dog with us from the UK, which is.
Melissa Martin:It's been a process.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, mum said if the dog can't come, we're not coming. We've, yeah, always had dogs. They're just I don't know. There's just something about dogs. They ask for nothing other than love and food. They're just great company. They're just, yeah, they're just amazing. I can't imagine life without dogs. I'll become a vet nurse and I was quite late in age. Becoming a vet nurse, did my training, got a job, and I'm still there today. I've been vet nursing for probably about 15, 16 years now.
Melissa Martin:How would you, as a conservation dog trainer today, how would you define success in your field?
Mandy Jones:I think, for me, success is knowing you and your dog have been trained to the highest possible level. You are, yes, going out and locating those species, no matter what that species is, whether it's invasive or endangered, and knowing you've done the best job that you guys can as a team. That to me, is success. And just having that bond with your dog, understanding each other's little nuances, and it is teamwork between the two of you. So to me that is success. Yes, it's absolutely amazing to go out and find the species. That's, you know, the icing on the cake, but it's just the whole process to me is success really? But it's just the whole process to me is success, really.
Melissa Martin:Now we'll jump into our rapid fire round, okay, so in this round I'm going to ask you ten questions, and they're going to be random questions, not about the topic, just to take you out of the topic for a little bit and get to know you a bit differently. The answers to questions are like what's your favourite, this or that kind of questions. All right, we'll get started. If you had to describe yourself as an animal, which would it be?
Mandy Jones:I'd probably have to say the dog. I know there's no surprise, but yeah, I think I relate closest to a dog. Yeah, yeah.
Melissa Martin:What's your star sign, sagittarius? What's your favourite season Summer. Ask for permission or ask for forgiveness, permission, call or text Text. What was your worst subject in high school? Oh, maths. What's a nickname? Your family or friends call you.
Mandy Jones:Well, none that I can think of that they call to my face. But when I was a child, dad always used to call me Tater, tater. I have no idea why or what it means, but yeah, I was always Tater.
Melissa Martin:Not because you like potatoes, no, because I don't know what the reasonater.
Mandy Jones:Not because you like potatoes, no, I don't know what the reason was I've never actually asked dad that, so I probably have to have that conversation with him. You just accepted it.
Melissa Martin:What do you think makes a great leader?
Mandy Jones:I think, compassion, understanding, empathy, the ability to listen.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, what is your favourite sport to watch?
Mandy Jones:Is it really bad if I say I don't have a favourite sport?
Melissa Martin:Not dog agility.
Mandy Jones:I actually don't watch any sport.
Melissa Martin:That's okay. Good, and the last question. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Mandy Jones:That's hard because I haven't been anywhere other than the UK when I was a child and I've only lived in Australia and I haven't actually really been anywhere. If I had to say, if I just had to randomly pick something, I think I would think I would say the UK.
Melissa Martin:And that is the end of our rapid fire round. Thank you, mandy, you're welcome.
Mandy Jones:Wasn't so painful.
Melissa Martin:You answered it very quickly. I was like, oh, you're the best I've had. Now we're going to jump into the basics about dog conservation and the process around training a dog In your own words. How do you simply explain what a conservation dog is?
Mandy Jones:I think I would explain it as a highly trained dog that understands what odour it is searching for, can go out into varying terrain weather, into varying terrain weather, all that type of environmental stuff, and still perform its job of locating the main source of that odour, which could you know, let's say, fox dens, trying to locate that fox den being efficient and accurate as is possible.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, yeah. And can any dog become a conservation dog?
Mandy Jones:No, it's probably a little bit like can any person become a conservation dog handler? Probably not. They probably do a reasonable job. But it's like could I become a concert pianist just because I can hit the keys? No, so um, no, they've. It takes a special type of dog to actually be able to do it and sustain a search for hours, um, and have a little short rest and then still be willing to go on again when time, you know, when it's tough out there. So no, not all dogs could do it.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, so I have a like a fox terrier cross at home, a cross with a blue heeler, a little bit of something else. She's from the APY lands. Yeah, she loves to follow a smell, but that doesn't qualify her to be a good conservation dog?
Mandy Jones:No, but she's got like fox terrier. They're quite feisty. Your heel is quite feisty. So if she's got the drive and the desire to constantly be searching for something for hours on end, potentially she could. And if she's young enough and trainable enough, yeah, potentially she could, but your average I enough and trainable enough yeah, potentially she could, but your average I don't know. Let's say, labrador, and we've got some awesome Labradors in Australia that do conservation work. So I'm not picking on Labradors, but some just don't have the necessary energy levels to go out and perform a four-hour search or they'd be like nah, I just want to sit on the couch and you can feed me biscuits or something you know.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and obviously we talked a little bit earlier about the Spaniel breed being maybe one of the ideal dogs for the work. Is there any other breeds that you would attempt to train?
Mandy Jones:Yeah, I'd probably go a Labrador, but a working line Labrador, so not your average pet bred Labrador, it'd have to be a working line. So the kind of dogs that you see at the airport and biosecurity, your Heelers and your Kelpies also really can be quite good at it. Particularly the kelpies, they have that high drive, high energy thing. So, yeah, I wouldn't discount any of those kind of breeds. And you want a dog that is agile? Yeah, and like some of our searches, I've had to lift my dog over many fences. So I also don't want a dog that's too chunky and too heavy, because after you've done like 10 kilometres you're just kind of running out of energy. Trying to lift a dog over a four foot fence is challenging.
Melissa Martin:And so you mentioned that you saw the conservation dogs in the UK and there's some around Australia. How long do you think this conservation tactic has been around to help the environment?
Mandy Jones:I think it's been around probably about 30-odd years in the UK. In Australia, I think probably around 20. Okay, yeah, and there is some really good interstate teams out there working some incredible species in Australia. Yeah, yeah.
Melissa Martin:Because maybe for our listeners, um, this might be completely new to them. So it is very interesting that thing like it's been around for up to 30 years and, yeah, still still new yeah, absolutely yeah and can you walk our listeners through the training process for a conservation dog? Is it like a nor like people got a dog training and reward them, or is there a different kind of process?
Mandy Jones:Yeah, so we do use rewards for our dogs. I mean the good thing with the Spaniels for my team, continuing searching is a reward for them. But being a human, I like to actually give a reward to my dog. It makes me feel good. So I technically, you know, generally use food for my dogs. They're happy to eat. Also, if they're sustaining a search, it gives them energy.
Mandy Jones:So I start from when I first get my dog usually as a roughly eight-week-old puppy, start doing basic training, sits, downs, come, you know, recalls, all that type of stuff before I even think about putting them to an odor that we're going to potentially search for. So they need to have some basic behaviors before any of that really starts. Then, you know, the pup grows up a little bit. Maybe six, eight months of age Somebody says, hey, can you search for X, Y, z? Yep, get the odor. Then I start pairing the odor to my dog so you smell odour. Here's a ball or a piece of cheese or a piece of meat or whatever. So the dog then learns oh, that smell brings me something great, which is, yeah, food. And then it's a really, really long process and it would probably take me several hours to go through it all completely, but we're just gradually stepping up from smell this reward. Then I'll move it away a little bit and the dog has to go to that odor and it's in a little pot or something and then I'll start hiding it and the dog has to go and actually search for it in the garden and then everything just gradually gets harder and harder for the dog and the searches get a little bit longer and a bit more challenging. Then we go out into the open environment, find a paddock somewhere, do the same thing, and can my dog search for 20 minutes before it finds an odour?
Mandy Jones:Luckily, the Spaniels love searching, so they're just like yes, I've got this, yeah, so yeah, and then it's lots of that, lots of, then transitioning to the type of environment we would find that species in, and just because not all environments are the same.
Mandy Jones:So then it's just teaching the dog that you've got to do this in this environment as well as in my backyard, and that can take a really long time to get everything to just gel together in the right environment, keep the dog focused on their job, keep them safe, keep myself safe and keep my. I usually have. Generally my dad comes with us and he's my safety guy, so watching everybody and just keeping everybody safe and yeah, so it can be quite a long process teaching the dog, but once they've done their first odour, their first searches, teaching the second odour is generally a lot quicker. You know, it might take eight to 12 months to teach the dog this odour, but also teaching the searching skills and directions and things like that Second odour is like a couple of months or something like that depending on everything, it's a long process and it's a long time.
Mandy Jones:But that's like for a dog that's never done it before. Once they have done it, the whole process is generally a little bit shorter.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, yeah, wow yeah.
Mandy Jones:And it depends on the dog's intelligence as well.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, yeah. And so with your dogs that you have now for it, obviously you want to build in contingency with new dogs coming through, because it does take a long time to do that. Wow, and how do you think the training of your dogs compares between training for conservation and training for detection?
Mandy Jones:There's probably not a lot of difference, it's just more the location, really, the imprinting, you know, teaching the dog the odour is important, is pretty much the same. It's just is the detection dog searching people for you know hidden contraband, or is it searching luggage, whereas the conservation dogs are you in sand dunes? Are you in a really thickly wooded forest or on an open plain? It's just, yeah, more the environment that's different. Pretty much everything else is the same. I guess. The other difference with conservation dogs is quite often they're off lead because they're in a wide open space. So they have to be under effective control. They must recall, they must do an emergency stop, they must know right and left directions and all that stuff. Yeah, these dogs are geniuses and that's why it takes so long, because they've got to know all that sort of stuff before we can even think about going out.
Melissa Martin:Yeah.
Mandy Jones:To me that stuff takes longer than imprinting the odour to the dog, because you've got to teach them. It is not just here, you've got to do that, you've got to do it every single place we go. And that's the difference. Whereas a lot of the detection dogs they're on lead. All they've got to know is this is the odour. I see it when I smell cannabis or whatever you know. Whereas the off-lead dogs, yeah, have to do so much more. They've got to not go too far a distance from me. I still need to see them in sight and things like that.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, Wow, and lift them over fences and lift them over fences, yes, or if they've got caught up in wire, because quite a lot of locations have wire so I've got to kind of untangle them or untangle myself, which just happens.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, of course. Of course, it's all fun. So what is a normal work day for you and one of your conservation dogs?
Mandy Jones:Yeah, so it's usually a very early morning start. I like to be out really early, before the warmth of the day comes along, because the heat will impact the dog's ability to search, obviously because of overheating, but also because they're just going to get too tired too quick, and so are us handlers, you know. So we're quite often up well before sunrise. I've already packed the car the night before, got all my water organised and I carry on my back at least five litres of water for myself and for my dog. Most importantly, my assistant will also carry probably about another four or five litres of water for myself and for my dog. Most importantly, my assistant will also carry probably about another four or five litres of water.
Mandy Jones:Car's all packed, I've charged all my batteries, put my GPS tracker and got all our safety gear, load the dogs up in the car. We head off, get to our location and basically unpack the whole car, get all our safety gear on, and we have things like snake gaiters, safety boots, high-vis vests for ourselves but also for the dogs. We take two-way radios with us so we can communicate over you know 300 metres type of thing. If there's a danger ahead, my helper can say Oi, stop, there's a road, or you know off-lead dogs or whatever you know 300 metres type of thing. If there's a danger ahead, my helper can say, oi, stop, there's a road, or you know off lead dogs or whatever you know, or there's a fence you're likely to trip over.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, then I set up my GPS tracking device so the dogs wear a tracking collar. I pop that on them. I have a handheld GPS which I can use to locate where the dogs have gone and locate a pop the mark in for where we found our species that we're searching for as well. We head off. Actually, before that, we do put signs out to say conservation dog working in the area, just so people are aware that we're not just messing around in the sand dunes, you know we're actually working.
Mandy Jones:And it actually really creates a lot of interest in people as well. Yeah, so we'll work out the best location to start. Sometimes we don't have a choice on where we start. I use the weather. If it's a bit windy, I like that wind to be blowing towards us so the dogs can pick up that odour from a bit of a distance. It doesn't always work that way, especially on the coast, it's always coming inland, so we have to work our way around all that. I mean. The dogs are super good. They learn how to read the weather and stuff as well.
Mandy Jones:We'll do our search and we're usually out there three, four hours, depending on the location. If it's cool and the dogs are coping really well, we'll go for a little bit longer. If it's really getting hot in summer, we'll maybe scale it back a little bit. I let the dogs dictate how long we go for where we go direction-wise. Finished our search, we head back to the car, reverse everything, take everything off, check the dogs over. We have to do safety checks on our dogs. That's super, super important. Quite often they'll pick up a lot of prickles, but I also need to make sure they haven't cut themselves on anything. You know, even just a shell can be quite sharp to a dog's paws. Check them all over, make sure they're hydrated, give them a little bit of food to get their energy level up. So then when we get back home, I download the data, send that all off, clean my gear, recharge all my batteries, make sure the dogs are still good. Then I can sit down and relax.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, so what's that? How long is a day? And obviously it depends on the heat as well. Maybe you'll cut the day short. But how long is a day of conservation? Dog work?
Mandy Jones:So yeah, generally I try to do three and a half, four hours out there, but again, yeah, depending on the weather, some areas are really steep so that obviously is more tiring than a beautiful flat area. So all those little things humidity, the weather, how it's not just so much the sun, it's the humidity, yeah, all that plays a huge part in it. I mean, we've had searches where we've gone five and a half hours because it's been perfect weather. Yeah, you know, it's been perfect terrain, everything's just, yeah, perfect.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, other ones it's, yeah, a little bit shorter, might be only be three hours, yeah, yeah and during that time, like is there ever it goes for four hours and they haven't found anything? Or there's multiple finds in those four-hour periods. Yeah, it can vary quite a bit.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, we have done searches where we found nothing. Just because there is nothing there, yeah, and then other ones. We've just found den or yeah, den after den after den in those locations. Sometimes they're really close together, sometimes they're really spread apart.
Melissa Martin:And has one of your conservation dogs ever sniffed out something that they weren't looking for but was cool to find anyway?
Mandy Jones:No, not so far. Stay on job. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. The dogs have a cue for whatever species we're looking for, yeah, so, like, say, for Maisie and Nessie, their cue is, you know, to find fox dens, foxies. So they have come across a lizard that they've done before in the past, a shingleback lizard that we've searched for in the past for one of the universities, and the dogs will be like, oh, what is this? Oh, no, that's not it, but that's really, I think only happened once. The dogs are like, oh, what is this? Oh, no, that's not it, but that's really. I think only happened once. The dogs are like, nope, not looking for that, this is what I'm doing which is really awesome.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, yeah. But if they want to find the pot of gold, I'm happy for them to find the pot of gold.
Melissa Martin:That'd be cool. Yeah Well, yes, so I guess Nessies's better at fox turns and maybe different dogs that you have are better at certain scents. Yes, is that how they get their certain jobs that they do, or do you try to cross them over?
Mandy Jones:Yeah it does depend on their personalities as to what job I think they'd be best suited to. So we went with Nessie doing the fox dens because she likes the big, wide areas, she likes to, you know, get down and be like oh, and she loves the smell of the fox odor. We did try her on another odor for an endangered butterfly and she did it really, really well. But because I think she had done fox dens, she was used to pushing through bushes and stuff to get to those dens and things like that. So we determined her not to be suitable for the really fragile butterfly larvae.
Mandy Jones:Badger, he's very much a ground-sniffing dog, so he's been perfect for pygmy blue-tongued lizard detection because they're obviously in the ground. And Hetty, my little badger sister, she's a very dainty little girl. She's just so agile. We've put her on the endangered yellow, so just skip her butterfly larvae because she is very gentle. The endangered yellow sedgeskipper butterfly larvae, because she is very gentle. She's very she's nuts but she's, yeah, just very gentle with everything she does. So we determined that she was a good fit for the yellow sedgeskipper butterfly larvae because of that reason?
Melissa Martin:Yep, yeah, we at Green Adelaide recently enlisted your services with Nessie to help the hula plover bird who was threatened by foxes along Adelaide's coastline. Nessie helped us sniff out fox dens and we know that finding a fox den can be a very laborious task for humans, but Nessie only took minutes to sniff out the dens. So can you walk us through, maybe, that job in particular with Nessie? Yep, and you mentioned earlier, before we started the podcast, that Nessie is pregnant at the moment. Yes, she is, and she is soon to have her, or maybe by the time this podcast is live she would have had her babies. Can you talk us through, I guess, your day when you take her out to the coastal area and how she sniffed out the fox dens and maybe how many she found and how was the day going?
Mandy Jones:Okay, search for the foxes. She bolts off and she's sniffing constantly. You can hear her nose like doing that noise all the time and she's, you know, using her eyes. And she, I mean she also looks for them, because some fox dens are really obvious. The first time we went out with the team from Bree in Adelaide, I think she found her very first fox den in like five minutes or something like that, and there was a group of two or three fox dens in that little area. So I was absolutely over the moon. We went to another location that had also been already cleared by people and within I think, five or ten minutes or something, she found a fox den that the people hadn't found. So I was just like very proud, mummy. I'm like, yes, we can do it.
Mandy Jones:So, yeah, nessie will push her way through all sorts of shrubs if she thinks there's a den there Long grass. She just follows her nose, her nose leads her to where she needs to go. She's super fast. But yeah, she just. I swear she could do it all on her own, wouldn't need me. If she had fingers she could push the GPS coordinates. I think she would be able to do it all by herself. Wow, wow.
Melissa Martin:For the area along the coast? Was there a certain parameter that you were searching or keeping in between, so we might?
Mandy Jones:do say the whole stretch of, say, henley Beach for some, you know, for any other reason. We'll do that whole stretch, but we might do it over three or four days, depending on how big each area is, how wide it is, how busy it is as well, because quite often there's a lot of people around, a lot of bike riders, those sorts of locations. I have to have her on lead because there's roads quite close, so that can sort of slow things down being on a long line as well. So we'll do each section as we need to each time we go out, and we'll generally go out three or four times a week. I don't do it every single day because the dogs work so hard. They need that day off between to, you know, revitalise themselves. Yep, and I do too.
Melissa Martin:Yep, and so your other dog, hetty, recently did some work about snipping out butterfly larva. Can you explain a little bit more about this job and what is butterfly larva?
Mandy Jones:So Hetty has been given the task of searching out the yellow sedge skipper butterfly larvae. It's basically a very endangered butterfly that lives in wetlands. It was very hard to spot by humans. So we have got Hetty sniffing out the larvae of those. So they're generally in a cocoon and they blend in with the plants Like you can see it, and then you turn away and you're like, oh, I can't see it again, you know. So using a dog to actually say yes, there's one here or there's one over here, can actually cut down manpower and can increase the speed and efficiency of actually locating those larvae. Hettie hasn't been out in the field yet doing it for real. It's a really challenging odour.
Mandy Jones:It's because the little larvae is quite tiny. There's not much odour coming off of that. Yeah, combining it with the moistness in the air of the wetlands if it's a salty environment salt coats things and lessens the output of odour. So it makes all these little things, make it more challenging for the dog to find Hetty and, of course, the rarity of them. So we're actually using special tubes that are called a GetScent tube. We're actually putting that odour of that larvae into these specially designed tubes. They're taking on that odour.
Mandy Jones:I'm using those tubes in training for Hettie because obviously I can't carry half a dozen caterpillars around with me. It really would not be ethically fair to them. So we're using these tubes. I can take them anywhere, I can hang them, I can put them on the ground, but the only thing is they last only six months with the odour, so I have to keep replenishing them in order to keep training Hetty.
Mandy Jones:Yeah, so we recently went out into some wetlands and I hid three or four of these tubes out there. It was the first time Hetty had been out into the wetlands and she sniffed and found every single one of those tubes out, like in minutes, like probably 20 minutes over, probably half an acre, I suppose, yeah. So I was super proud of her because it is a really hard odour for her to find in such an open environment, because the wind can actually blow the odour away, it can work in your favour, yeah, but in certain times it can actually blow the odour away. And also because it is such a low odour, she's actually got to be in exactly the right location to pick that odour up, so it hits her in the nostrils, but she's showing that she's really gentle around the larvae and around the plants. She's not, you know, doing any damage to them, which is super important for such an endangered species and such a fragile species.
Melissa Martin:And what type of alert do? Maybe all the dogs do? Maybe it's all different when they've found something?
Mandy Jones:Yeah, it depends on the dog. It depends on the odour and the location of it. So for the fox dens, the Nessie and Maisie just generally go into either a sit or a down, depending on the slope and the angle of where the den's located, or if it's in a bush or something like that where the den's located, or if it's in a bush or something like that. Faheti, with the butterfly larvae, she can't because she can't go into the plant and actually put her nose right up against that larvae.
Mandy Jones:I watch her body language and that's where all my training with the body language of the dogs comes into play. I watch her body language, the way she moves, the way she holds her head, where her tail is moving. All these little things tell me she's in odour and it's right there. But she just can't get into the bush to say it's right here in the middle. So that's how I work it for her With the pygmy blue-tongued lizards the dogs generally go into a down position, you know, sort of a foot away from the burrow, and just like have their nose pointing at the burrow and say it's here.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, that is completely different to what TV told me. I feel like TV tells you they bark.
Mandy Jones:Oh, search and rescue, search and rescue. Yes, okay, search and rescue. They will bark for missing people, to say, especially if they can't access that missing person. Yeah, so that is kind of true, they do bark.
Melissa Martin:But you didn't lie to me.
Mandy Jones:No, I didn't lie to you, but we can't have a barking dog out in the environment because of all the other wildlife and also, you know, if people are out as well, it can freak a person out. Yeah, yeah, but also because we don't want it frightening the wildlife. So we like a very passive alert just sit here or lay down here and just stay in position and I'll come to you and confirm the presence of the target species.
Melissa Martin:And the other story I want to talk a little bit about is the project that you're working with Flinders Uni on around sniffing out the blue-tongued lizards, or pygmy blue-tongued lizards so pygmy blue-tongued lizards that? Is. Can you talk to us a little bit about that one?
Mandy Jones:Yeah, so we've been working with Flinders this has been a long time coming with the pygmy blue-tongued lizards. It's such an exciting project to be working on with some of the honours students. So the dogs have done, I think, about three months worth of in-house training at Flinders University, searching out in certain specific pipes which is the correct lizard odor. That's for one of the PhD students on a program. Then, once Nessie's had her puppies, her and Badger will go out back to Flinders and we'll do some more in-house stuff but in their holding pens where the pygmy blue tongues are actually in, in their little shelters and things, and then they're going to compare dogs to a human to find which burrow has got the pygmy blue tongues in.
Melissa Martin:So it's going to be a little bit of a competition.
Mandy Jones:It's like who's faster and who's more accurate the person or the dogs? Yeah, and then we're going to go out into the field where there is real-life setup of pygmy blue tongue lizards yeah, and again we'll send the dogs out of pygmy blue-tongued lizards yeah, and again we'll send the dogs out that's part to see if the lizards are breeding out there, also to sort of work out numbers. Are they thriving in that environment? Is there something that needs to be changed? Do they need more grasses around? Less grasses? Because they are very specific on where they live and breed. And so, you know, people have to get down on their hands and knees and search for spider burrows that have hopefully got a pygmy blue-tongued lizard in it, and that's really time-consuming, it's hard on their knees, whereas the dogs can come in and sweep over an area and be like, yes, there's a burrow here that's actually got a lizard in it. So that is the plan and we're actually really looking forward to getting out into the field and, yeah, putting the dogs through their paces yeah.
Melissa Martin:And what do you see as the future for conservation dogs in your business? I?
Mandy Jones:want more dogs out there, more handlers out there. I want it to be more widely recognised that dogs are a valuable tool in the search for endangered or invasive animals. For my business, I would like to be able to do it all year round. Go from one season of doing, let's say, fox dens, roll that over into the next few months of doing, say, pygmy, blue-tongued lizards or turtle nests or you know anything really and just have the dogs out there 12 months of the year on a rotating cycle. That's my dream.
Melissa Martin:What do your conservation dogs do for fun? And I understand that this is probably fun to them. It's so fun.
Mandy Jones:It's so much fun for them. They're so happy when they've finished work. They're just like that was the best day of my life. What do they do for fun? Well, their kind of work is fun, but at home they like to lounge around, sleep on my couch, sleep on my bed. They're both real cuddle dogs, particularly Hetty. Hetty loves cuddle. Nessie's like yeah, I'll be next to you, you can pat me, you're my slave, you can pat me, but Hetty has to be on my lap. That, to them, is fun. We also go off to friends' places and let them just have a free run in their paddocks, run around, be dogs, you know, get dirty, you know, eat gross stuff and just yeah, just have fun that way. Yeah, yeah.
Melissa Martin:And is there an age where they retire from service? There will be.
Mandy Jones:I don't really like to think about that too much. It's like you know, I want my dogs to stay young forever. To think about that too much, it's like you know, I want my dogs to stay young forever. But I think over what I've seen of the other conservation dogs interstate and overseas most of them and it depends on the work that they're doing and the terrain they're in. But most will probably start to slow down about eight, nine years of age.
Melissa Martin:Thank you for that Before I let you go, just to finish up for our listeners who maybe want to get into conservation, dog training or handling what's one learning from your career that you wish you knew when you started?
Mandy Jones:Find yourself a mentor. Okay, you know, because I have been doing this predominantly on my own. I've learned from my own mistakes. I haven't had help, I've had to just basically find out the hard way. It's taken me a lot longer than what I would actually have liked. So find yourself a good mentor, somebody who's experienced, that is willing to help you on the whole journey. And it is a massive journey. It's constantly evolving, constantly changing. But yeah, just seek help more often than you think you need, you know, just to have that backup for when you have a problem that you don't know what to do with. You've got someone to go to and say, oh, what do I do here? Last year or two, I've made some really good friends interstate that do conservation stuff. So I'm always you know, what would you do here, what would you do here, and vice versa, when we need to. But I wish I'd had that, you know, six years ago.
Mandy Jones:That would have made the whole process so much easier. Yeah, but it's yeah, just seek help. Yeah, Yep.
Melissa Martin:Thank you so much, Mandy, for your time. You're very welcome.
Mandy Jones:It's been a lot of fun, thank you.
Melissa Martin:And we are at the end of this episode of the Green Adelaide Podcast. Thank you to our special guest, mandy Jones. If you are interested in enlisting a conservation dog, please get in touch with Mandy and her team. Head to conservationdogcomau and I'll add the link in the show notes as well. This podcast was recorded on Kaurna land and I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the land. This podcast is your insider scoop on all things cool, green and wild in metropolitan South Australia. I am your host, Melissa Martin, and remember, subscribe to our podcasts for new episode alerts. Catch you next month.