Kate George (Rapallo dog squad)
Other
I am an ecologist/environmental scientist with over 20 years’ experience in ecological survey and environmental assessment and a certified environmental practitioner (CEnvP) with Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ). I specialise in arid environments and have led detailed vertebrate fauna surveys and targeted surveys for northern quoll, ghost bat, Pilbara leaf-nosed bat, night parrot, Pilbara olive python, great desert skink (nampu), mulgara, spectacled hare-wallaby and bilby throughout the Pilbara and deserts of Western Australia. I have two dogs, River and Alby who are currently trained on great desert skink (nampu) as part of a collaboration with the Ngalia traditional owners of the Western Deserts.
Both dogs are trained on Kong using Paul Bunker’s method. This means that solid foundations have been laid for the adding of future odours.
River is a Labrador kelpie mix whose one true love is a ball. She’s very kelpie and brings the intensity. River is trained to give a passive indication (sit and stare) when on odour. River has been trained to avoid dugite, tiger snake, death adder, gwarder, mulga snake.
Alby, also a Labrador/kelpie mix is the ying to Rivers yang. He is very much a working line Labrador, still ball obsessed but can be tempted by a tasty morsel. He is high drive but he also brings the party. His ears are in a constant battle of lab verses kelpie so are often inside out, hence the nickname Alby wrong ears! His mother is a choc lab, his father a golden kelpie (this is why he is so much bigger than River). Alby is trained to give a passive indication (sit/down and stare) when on odour. Alby has been trained to avoid dugite, tiger snake, death adder, gwarder, mulga snake.
