World's first cane toad sniffer dog bound for WA

11/6/06
In a world first, Western Australia will employ the services of a specially trained sniffer dog to hunt down cane toads at the border crossing between WA and the Northern Territory.
Environment Minister Mark McGowan today announced that Queensland dog training company Multi-National K-9 (MNK9) had been awarded a contract worth around $10,000 by the Carpenter Government to train a two-year-old female Belgian Malinois named Nifty.
Mr McGowan said Nifty had a good pedigree in detection work and would be flown to Kununurra for a three-month trial in September, once her training was complete.
"Nifty should be able to detect cane toads on the move as well as the presence of cane toad hides, days after the toads have moved on," he said.
"If the trial is successful, the use of sniffer dogs will be an invaluable tool in the fight against this invasive pest."
The Minister said the training program would take between two to three months and involve two to four training sessions per day.
"The dog has to be 'scent associated' to the target odour of cane toad, and as such, a requirement of the dog is that it must be active, agile and have a strong prey (chase) drive towards toys and other items," he said.
"Over the first few weeks, the dog's search drive and indications of a find will be developed so the dog can actively search for cane toads in 30-minute sessions.
"The dog is then given harder search scenarios and is conditioned to different environments and distractions during searches.
"The dog will be trained to search buildings, cars, trucks and open areas in scent saturated areas to ensure the search for cane toads overrides distractions such as other scents and animals.
"MNK9 will be using live and dead cane toads for the training, then conducting several field sessions locating cane toads in the environment."
The Belgian Malinois is the short-coated variety of the Belgian Shepherd Dog. They are fawn coloured with a black mask and possess a keen intelligence. The breed excels in obedience, agility tracking and search and rescue.
To date, the State Government has allocated $2.5million towards preventing cane toads entering WA.
Minister's office: 9222 9111