Wildlife Detection Setters | Website
Wildlife Detection Setters
Phone: +61 458 694 922
Reviews
to load big map
23.01.2022 Wura about to jump into action.. I've been working on my cinematography skills over the years, with Wura making a very good practice subject. I plan to put together a short documentary on working setters in the near future. You can follow our future adventures and updates on the film here.
21.01.2022 Thanks to Irish Setter Club of WA for running this article on our escapades in the outback... There are many great articles in this publication, get on board!
13.01.2022 Using a feather on the end of a line and stick I have taught Chip to not chase the quarry. Initially a pup will chase, but by swiftly moving the feather just out of reach they eventually learn that the cannot actually get the feather, so eventually they resign to just watching or 'pointing'. I find once you reach this stage you should not do it very often or they may start to loose interest and intensity.
13.01.2022 This is Bensen (Above and bottom right), He was the third setter that I acquired. His behavioural attributes just didn't develop in the way that I would have liked, he is too reserved and timid, which was perhaps accentuated by having him neutered. His skill at locating animals is perfectly fine but he has behavioural issues, mostly to do with his very timid nature, that make him not very adaptable to changing situations and therefore not suitable for work as a wildlife detec...tion dog. Lucky for him, my parents love him and he has a good home as a pet dog. Behavioural attributes often have to do with the dogs upbringing, especially at key phases as a puppy, but once developed are mostly set in as an adult. Im not quite sure, but some of his timidness might have to do with not being exposed to enough different situations/experiences and perhaps too much routine as a puppy. Ill definitely be trying to expose future puppies Im training to as many varied situations as possible, in the hope that it will help them develop a suitably adaptable nature that is required to work as a wildlife detection dog. See more
13.01.2022 I have an interest in Reptiles, so they are one of the groups of animals I have trained Wura to point. Here she found a Spiny-tailed Gecko. These geckos are extremely hard to spot during the day, where they remain motionless within shrubs. Here I lifted it out of the shrub that she pointed it in for a better look. I do not normally use a muzzle on Wura but occasionally landholders will require that I do, to gain access to their land. They are not familiar with the dog or me, ...so I am occasionally in situations where a pastoralist feels uncomfortable letting a dog run around where they have livestock, the use of a muzzle often appeases there worries. Therefor it is important to use it occasionally, so that when it is needed, the dog will be used to it and work normally. Though it is not good to use one in very hot weather as it will negatively impact the dogs ability to cool down by panting. See more
11.01.2022 Here Wura is tentatively pointing a Ring-tailed Dragon. A typical point stance is with one front leg curled up and sometimes also the opposite rear leg and with a straight horizontal tail. Here she is not showing a very strong indication, this was quite a few years back and it was one of the first Agamids that she had seen. Setters will generally follow the handlers lead in what they should show interest in or not. For animals that I want them to target, I give praise followi...ng detection (Id recommend to let them point for a little while as they are quite excited at this time) and moving up to the dog will usually scare away whatever they are pointing. Where they point animals that are not of interest, simply stop them pointing as soon as possible and lead them away, with no praise and no interest and command them to move on. In my experience the dog will quickly learn what you want it to point and what you do not want it to point. Needless to say I stopped her from pointing Agamids not long after this first encounter, as she would be pointing left right and centre out in the outback if she did! I also often use a word for groups of Animals, when they point them, for example I will say "Birds" when they point a ground bird or "Mammals" when they point a Bilby or Mulgara in a burrow. Over time the dog will associate the word with the animal types and you can use the word to get them in the mode for looking more specifically for one thing over another.. A good setter is a very intelligent hunter and I have no doubt that Wura has recalled years after being in a specific habitat and looking for a specific target, that when we have gone back into a similar habitat somewhere else, she remembers and recognises the similarity and what we are looking for there. Years after looking for some targets, going back out, she has started straight away, running a beat and pointing the target animals, without me having to say anything!
11.01.2022 Wura, taking in the view, or probably more so the scents carried through the moist air around a desert water hole. When these desert clay pans fill with water they become good spots to find animals. At this spot Wura pointed quite a few Quail, though at further distances from the waterhole she tended to 'bump' them, meaning that the humidity was so low that she was too close by the time she picked up the scent, causing the quail to flush. But closer to the waterhole she was a...ble to hold them still on point. At night they can fairly easily be caught with a net if required. I usually just give a command for her to flush the bird by taking a couple of steps forward, so that I can get a few photos and a positive ID. I've seen that it is possible, though I would think very difficult, to train a dog to back off a bird once they are locked on point. At this moment the adrenaline is very high, with both animals being aware of each others presence, caught in that moment just before predator would normally chase and prey would flee, the setter is bred and trained to resist the urge to chase. If it is required (If there is any potential danger from other predators to the animal that will be flushed), I move up to the dog, put on a lead, turn around and lead away. Then we move around it and upwind, past the animal, then continue scenting. See more
11.01.2022 I made this quick and dirty video a few years ago from some phone footage while working with Wura on an environmental survey out on the Fortescue Marsh for BHP. Our main target was the Night Parrot, at the time we thought they may roost in these Lignum shrubs during the day, it has since been found out that they prefer to roost in Spinifex, perhaps why we had no luck! We did find quite a few other species amongst the lignum though. Including a few of the Orange Chat nests and... Striped-faced Dunnarts featured in the vid. I hope to make it back to this location with Wura soon and have a run in the surrounding spinifex. I am going myself in about 2 weeks, but the company I will be working for denied the use of a dog, as it is currently not a standard survey tool and also a poorly understood one by most of the environmental survey and consulting industry and associated governing bodies. So for the moment, I will have to settle for walking around kicking each spinifex clump one by one with the ridiculously low chance that I can flush one! We will also be listening for calls, but that requires great luck too, you'd have to be within hearing range of their roost site at the time they become active at night when they sometimes call before they fly to their feeding grounds. At the end of the video, I included an aerial image with GPS tracks of myself and Wura overlayed, where you can see the clear advantage in surface area covered by Wura, running a zig-zag beat to my straight track... https://vimeo.com/105001677
10.01.2022 The most important training you can do with a working dog in Australia is for poison bait avoidance. I have lost a dog while working to a poison bait, it was truly devastating. I have written about it previously in my post about Quell, you can read further about that incident there. Here I have started the training process with Chip. I have taught him to only eat on command and only ever from a bowl.
08.01.2022 This was my first setter, Quell. This photo was taken in 2008, just before her first foray into the outback. She died on the trip, after eating a poison 1080 bait, laid by farmers all over Australia to kill wild dogs and Dingoes. If I could give only one piece of advice on this page it would be on the importance of bait avoidance training. I naively thought that a muzzle would be the solution to stop her from eating poison baits, but I was very wrong! As I've mentioned elsewh...ere on this page and gone into more detail, muzzles are not useable in very hot weather and I've learnt that even the best-designed one can't stop the dog from eating bait anyway! Quell was wearing a good muzzle, well fitting and well constructed (The same one worn by Wura on a picture below), I let her off her cable run one morning, letting her wander around camp for just a few minutes while I was packing the car. I had left her out of sight for no longer than 2 minutes and looked up to see her 50m away laying down and dragging her head backwards across the ground. I called her and ran over to see what she was doing. I could see a small piece of bait laying on the ground. I quickly removed her muzzle and tried to make her vomit by putting my fingers down her throat, but nothing came up, (I'd recommend carrying soda crystals or Apomorphine for emergencies). I figured she might just have chewed a little, through the gaps in the muzzle. But, around an hour later she threw up a big chunk of bait and some thick yellow foam. I realised that she had been able to get the bait into her muzzle through the back by dragging her head backwards across it! She deteriorated quickly and I had to put her down. It is a horrifying thing to have happen and deeply affected everyone on the job, needless to mention all the hours wasted on training that would have to be repeated again. I got another setter not long after, that being Wura. With her, I made bait avoidance training top priority, I'll share another post on the techniques I've used and the success I've had with it.
07.01.2022 One thing about working setters that I have trouble communicating to people, is the difference between them and the dogs the average person keeps as a pet and the difference between the breeds that are usually used as 'sniffer dogs'. This is Australia's wild dog, the Dingo and in many ways, the working setter has more in common with it and other wild dogs, like the Wolf, than the average pet or the breeds usually used as 'sniffer dogs'. I've travelled to many corners of the w...orld and have had the pleasure of seeing many great top predators in action. I've followed a pride of lions hunting in the night. I've hunted pigs, deer and other animals in the jungle with hunter-gatherer tribes that have trained and relied on their dogs for thousands of years, in places such as Borneo, Papua New Guinea and remote parts of Vanuatu. You can see some of my adventures on my photography page Foto by Tom. These animals have evolved and/or been adapted over time to become extremely effective and efficient at finding prey and have achieved it through developing a level of intelligence and a level of natural intuition, i.e instinct. Many of the dog breeds that are kept as pets, including ones that are often used as 'sniffer dogs' have unfortunately lost many of these attributes over time. For some time now it has been much more popular in our society for people to focus on the physical characteristics of dog breeds over their behavioural attributes or hunting skill. To me, it is evident when dealing with well-bred setters, that their prey locating skills are similar to that of other wild top-order predators that I've seen hunting and also similar to the dogs that the human masters of the wild, the surviving hunter-gatherer people of our planet use for hunting. With the distinct difference being that setters do not chase or attack, but point or 'set' the quarry for their human handlers. See more
05.01.2022 Among the Spinifex and Desert Oaks, Wura runs a beat (zig zag pattern) upwind, scenting the air for her targets. Here you can notice her nose is low to the ground. This is because the humidity is low and scent is not carrying far on the wind. When scenting conditions are better, the setter will raise their nose higher to take in scents that have drifted from further away, thereby increasing their range of detection. Dogs with a good hunting instinct and given experience will ...learn this behaviour on their own. Also, an attentive and experienced handler will soon get an idea of the range of their dog in various conditions of wind, temperature and humidity. In these poor conditions you will also see the dog reduce the distance between its beats. I.e it will run at a more acute angle across the wind, back and forth and will normally also shorten the length of its beat, so as not to stray too far from the handler, as it will also be moving slower and more erratically. When scenting conditions are better, they will run at more of an angle into the wind with a larger distance between the beats and also at a faster pace and longer distance from the handler on each side, significantly decreasing the time it takes to cover the same area. The setter will adjust the distance it travels to each side of the handler by the speed that you walk, normally aiming to cross your path slightly in front of you. Though occasionally they will fall behind if they loop back down wind to check on a scent they have run past. See more
05.01.2022 This is Chip, the newest member of the detection team, he will be trained to locate a few different species of conservation significant fauna and I will also be attempting more conventional 'sniffer dog' training with him, to help us locate Quoll scats. In areas where Quolls are present in low numbers, their scats are the best indicator of their presence. I'll be posting updates on training progress on this page.
02.01.2022 How close can she get!? As you can see here, Wura is pointing, but the point is not very strong, she if fairly calm and relaxed, but very interested. This is because she has experience with geckos and knows that they can't get away from her, so there is not the same intense adrenaline hit for her compared to when she is pointing something larger and faster, that she knows she will lose if she makes one wrong step. She will just hold her nose close to the animal until I call h...er off, sometimes she even thinks her nose is a little in the way and she cocks her head a bit so that she can get one eye a bit closer! You might be wondering what happens when she encounters a snake.. I exposed her to snakes when she was young and held her back, always at least a few meters away and would pull her back by picking her up off the ground and jolting her back quite harshly. It really did not take many times for her to learn, perhaps 2-3 encounters. It also seems to me like they have some instinctive awareness of the danger of snakes. For all of her adult life when we have encountered snakes, which would have been a few dozen times now, she still holds back a few meters and shows interest but does not persue and quite quickly moves on. Id say this is essential training for wildlife detection dogs, as snakes will be encountered at some point.
