Many shelter dogs spend their days sniffing out poop, but few finds homes, purpose, cult followings, and calendar modeling opportunities because of this. Each dog featured in the 2019 Conservation Canines annual calendar epitomizes this curious life trajectory, however, by turning searches for scat into a public service.
Established in 1997 by Dr. Sam Wasser, director of the University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology, Conservation Canines is a program that adapts police dog detection techniques for conservation science—namely, training dogs to track down animal scat for the purpose of monitoring endangered and threatened wildlife species.
Nine handlers spend their days in Washington's 4,300-acre Pack Forest alongside CK9s (Conservation K9s): dogs whose tireless energy and need for stimulation prevented them from finding homes, but which makes them ideal scent detectives. The 17 dogs currently employed in the program approach scent detection as a game, eagerly learning to track the scents of dozens of species' feces.
Scat samples provide significantly more data than hair snares, camera traps, and other monitoring services. Where a photo can tell you about the presence and movements of an animal, scat also reveals information about its diet and overall health.
Sharing the scat-searching experience with a dog is more than just a way to make the experience more enjoyable. With their exceptional olfactory abilities, scent dogs can hunt down species-specific scat with 19-times the efficiency of humans and 153 percent more accuracy, studies show. The Conservation Canines handlers and CK9s channel this ability into research programs around the world, doing everything from identifying the range of endangered caribou; to homing in on skill has been applied to research
The fourth annual Conservation Canine calendar, shot and designed by wildlife photographer Jaymi Heimbuch to serve as a "relationship builder" with the non-profit's ardent supporters, explores exactly what it means to be a shelter-dog-turned-CK9.
We spoke with Heimbuch about the process of putting together the calendar; what it means to the organization; and what she's discovered about the dogs, conservation work, and her own approach to photography over the past four years.
