The first professional level course in Europe for anyone interested in conservation/eco detection dogs.
While taught at a professional level, this course is for the person who is just starting conservation/eco detection work, whether you are a dog trainer, handler, biologist or simply interested. It will cover the basic must-knows needed by anyone wishing to work and train with conservation/eco detection dogs.
Topic include but are not limited to;
- Designing a scientifically valid conservation/eco detection dog trainings protocol
- Preparing and storing training samples
- Learning how to train your dog to indicate/alert on species specific scent
- How to plan, design and start a field survey
- Endangered/rare species detection
- Scat detection
- Invasive species detection
- Scent matching (identifying individual animals within a population)
- Habitat use by target species and how that relates to your training
- How to log, interpret and collect evidence detected by the dog at the survey site
Uniquely we also teach you basic visual wildlife tracking techniques, so you and your dog form a complete team. For example rare species detection; A piece of evidence detected by the dog backed up with a detailed visual scene analysis by the handler can be used as valid evidence in proofing the existence of an endangered species within a certain area.
This course can not and will not attempt to change your dog into an eco detection dog in 5 days. Its purpose is to give you a course of direction to continue the goal of improving your knowledge & skills towards scientifically valid eco detection work. Continuation of education and training is possible by making separate training appointments or doing a follow-up course.
The course is developed by Hotsche Luik and Eric Burchell, professionals with proven background and experience, and is a combination of lectures and practical (field) work.
The course is exclusive for Scent Detection Academy and divided in two parts, first there will bet two days theoretical information, followed by 3 days practical training of your dog on your samples.
