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Speaker 3: Oh hey, it's that thing in the backyard that you
Speaker 3: meant to do something with but now it got rained
Speaker 3: on it's ali ward. This is Ologies. This is a
Speaker 3: show that is seldom about dogs, except for now. As
Speaker 3: this is a bit of a companion episode to last
Speaker 3: week's at No Sinology episode about dogs being your companions,
Speaker 3: How Wolves Went to Dogs. So this week we are
Speaker 3: following up with a wonderful new guest on how science
Speaker 3: and conservation partners with dogs to do the work that
Speaker 3: we cannot. So yes, dogs can not only smell narcotics
Speaker 3: in a duffel bag. They can also let us know
Speaker 3: how plants and animals are faring in the wild. So
Speaker 3: this guest shot or shot by tagging me in some
Speaker 3: excellent videos about her working conservation and look where we
Speaker 3: are now we've got a whole episode. So as a
Speaker 3: second year PhD student at Oregon State University, they travel
Speaker 3: the world studying wolves on islands in Alaska, jungle cats
Speaker 3: and so much more. And as a founder of a
Speaker 3: nonprofit group called Canine Conservationists, this ologist coined the term
Speaker 3: eco odorology, which can involve dogs detecting little plants, mold
Speaker 3: invasive species. They detect bat and bird fatalities on wind farms,
Speaker 3: invasive zebra muscles, carnivore populations, cheetahs, and Kenya bobcats in
Speaker 3: the foothills, and they're trained to find so much more.
Speaker 3: So this episode is a bit of a treat because
Speaker 3: we recorded it in two parts. First, I headed to
Speaker 3: a trailhead in LA's Griffith Park on an absolute scorcher
Speaker 3: so hot, and.
Speaker 4: We're kind of moving back on down ably gonna let
Speaker 4: him just keep this ball, uh huh, and let him
Speaker 4: We call this quiet quitting where he can now go
Speaker 4: hang out in the shade, do whatever he needs to do.
Speaker 3: It was over one hundred degrees that day, and I
Speaker 3: was able to meet conservation dog Barley as we sniffed
Speaker 3: our way up dusty paths and hung out in a
Speaker 3: cedar grove looking for evidence of coyotes and bobcats. I'm
Speaker 3: also I'm panting here and there so was Barley, but
Speaker 3: Barley didn't have a mic, and I'm sweating everywhere, But
Speaker 3: we get into it. Then we followed up with a
Speaker 3: traditional studio episode where I was as composed as a
Speaker 3: person can be when they're talking about puppies. But first
Speaker 3: quick thanks to patrons who make the show possible. You
Speaker 3: can be one of them by hitting up Patreon dot
Speaker 3: com slash ologies, where you can ask the ologist questions
Speaker 3: before we record, and we chime in every week with
Speaker 3: discussion threads over there. Also thank you to everyone in
Speaker 3: ologies merch, which you can get from ologiesmarch dot com,
Speaker 3: and to everyone who, for no dollars supports us just
Speaker 3: by leaving reviews so more people can find the show.
Speaker 3: I read them all, and this week I will read
Speaker 3: you one from someone who wrote I'm a Rhiannon too,
Speaker 3: but I do not study deer. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for making this podcast when the world really needed it. Rhiannon,
Speaker 3: What is Rihanna talking about? We're going to clear that
Speaker 3: out late in the episode if you don't know, but
Speaker 3: for now, sit and stay for an entire episode on
Speaker 3: how dogs happily do our dirty work of sniffing for
Speaker 3: a wild animal poop rescue, dogs do a dog jobs,
Speaker 3: what rewards work when training dogs on a boat, dogs
Speaker 3: in the jungle, wolves in the sea, Why noses are wet,
Speaker 3: how garbage your sense of smell is, and how you
Speaker 3: can get into this field and out into the field
Speaker 3: working with your best bud with conservation biologist dog Trader,
Speaker 3: knine advocate and eco odorologist Kayla Fratt.
Speaker 4: Farley's in this chair right here, and Niffler is probably
Speaker 4: going to settle a dog, but that's like just right
Speaker 4: on the other side of the table. Sometimes they're like
Speaker 4: under my feed. My name is Kayla Fratt. She her
Speaker 4: and I am studying the movement and diet and a
Speaker 4: bunch of other interesting questions of the Alexander Archipelago wolf
Speaker 4: using scat collection through the detection dogs and then also
Speaker 4: looking at some behavioral characteristics with the detection dogs as
Speaker 4: far as like learning and efficacy and whatnot.
Speaker 3: You're collecting data on the wolf in this series of islands,
Speaker 3: but you're also collecting data on how the domesticated wolves
Speaker 3: are learning that right, domesticated wolves being dogs. You can
Speaker 3: see last week's at No Sinology episode which is all
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So as far as the wolves go, we're basically
Speaker 4: working with poop. So the dogs will locate little piles
Speaker 4: of poop or sometimes big piles of poop. We take
Speaker 4: those home, we take them back to the lab, and
Speaker 4: then we do a process called DNA metabar coding where
Speaker 4: we pull out all of the little strands of DNA
Speaker 4: and we run those against a database and then figure
Speaker 4: out what is in that fegal sample and kind of
Speaker 4: aut what levels.
Speaker 3: On a more detailed level, though, we.
Speaker 4: Can also do a process called genotyping, which tells us
Speaker 4: who the wolf is, you know, the individual ide their sex,
Speaker 4: and over the course of years, then that can tell
Speaker 4: us maybe how old that wolf is or if that
Speaker 4: wolf is ultimately harvested, and then we can kind of
Speaker 4: match that DNA back then we can know maybe how
Speaker 4: old that wolf was at the time that it died.
Speaker 4: And then on the dog side of things, I'm keeping
Speaker 4: track of all sorts of things, as far as how
Speaker 4: far the dog is away from the scat when it
Speaker 4: first catches the odor, how the dog actually moves to
Speaker 4: the scat, and whether or not the dog reports with
Speaker 4: what we call a trained final response, which is that
Speaker 4: they're supposed to lie down with that scat, or if
Speaker 4: they kind of stand there and are a little bit
Speaker 4: wishy washy about that identification, which sometimes can be fatigue
Speaker 4: or vegetation related, like you can imagine if there's a
Speaker 4: big pointy rock or like a thorny thing there, they
Speaker 4: might choose not to lie down, But sometimes it also
Speaker 4: can indicate that they're not as certain about that id.
Speaker 3: So when a trained dog smells something that it's been
Speaker 3: told to look for, it will lie down kind of
Speaker 3: sphinx like with the specimen between his two front paws.
Speaker 3: So he just laid down.
Speaker 4: Ye I think we've got Oh are you serious not
Speaker 4: to be working yet? Good? Wow?
Speaker 3: A bobcat poop right there, just sitting on an embankment
Speaker 3: sort of, and so he just got rewarded with the ball.
Speaker 3: But in rocky terrain, of course they're gonna wing it,
Speaker 3: and Kayla is not only studying the ecology of the
Speaker 3: wild animals, but also how the canine eco odorologists are
Speaker 3: doing their jobs.
Speaker 4: And then I'm doing a lot of data collection on
Speaker 4: the training side of things, so actually getting the dogs
Speaker 4: ready and how we use them in the field and
Speaker 4: how that affects the results long term. Lots of data,
Speaker 4: lots of data.
Speaker 3: So back to the undomesticated actual wolves. When you say harvested,
Speaker 3: what exactly does that mean? Does that mean that they
Speaker 3: are cold or does that mean that they've been poached?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so these wolves are primarily in the Tongas National
Speaker 4: Forest where there is hunting and trapping allowed for these wolves.
Speaker 4: They're not in like a national park or somewhere where
Speaker 4: they're protected. So yeah, currently mostly hunting and trapping and
Speaker 4: it is legal.
Speaker 3: It is permitted when you're coming up with a training
Speaker 3: plan for the eco odorological aspects of it. Like, what
Speaker 3: are we talking in terms of old factory acumen when
Speaker 3: we're talking about dogs, what are they smelling that we aren't.
Speaker 4: So many things. We are basically noseblind as far as
Speaker 4: like mammals go. Compared to dogs. We are like you know,
Speaker 4: the salamanders that can kind of sense light and dark.
Speaker 4: I can't actually see that is like the difference in
Speaker 4: degree between our old faction and their old faction.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: So as far as then training goes, what we generally
Speaker 4: are starting with is getting a lot of samples of
Speaker 4: our target odor. And the reason we want a lot
Speaker 4: is because there can be variations in odor depending on
Speaker 4: what that animal was eating, its reproductive status, if it's
Speaker 4: particularly stressed that day, if it's on antibiotics, you know,
Speaker 4: when we're talking zoo samples, that's a big factor. So
Speaker 4: we want to make sure that we give the dogs
Speaker 4: enough samples that they know that they're not just looking
Speaker 4: for a lactating female brown bear who's eating salmon and
Speaker 4: is on antibiotics, but we're actually looking for black bears
Speaker 4: in general. Wow. And then we're doing all sorts of
Speaker 4: careful handling with those samples to make sure that we
Speaker 4: don't get those samples covered in our own sweat, the
Speaker 4: scent of plastic if they've been stored in like plastic bags.
Speaker 4: You know, if you put that scat sample down on
Speaker 4: the surface and then pick it back up, is it
Speaker 4: picking up odor from something like that? Are you storing
Speaker 4: it in your freezer next to your other biological samples
Speaker 4: within they're cross contaminating. And then then once we've got
Speaker 4: all those samples and we've kind of got them prepared appropriately,
Speaker 4: then we can start introducing the dogs to those.
Speaker 3: Okay, but how long does that take? Like years? Or
Speaker 3: are dogs sense of smell so good that they just
Speaker 3: learn in an instant.
Speaker 4: With the more experienced dogs that we have at this point,
Speaker 4: that process often goes pretty quickly. For like just a
Speaker 4: scat sample of a given species, that might just take
Speaker 4: a couple weeks of training. But then when you're looking
Speaker 4: at some ecoodology dogs, we'll work with things like pathogens
Speaker 4: or fung gui or identifying specific insects nests. Once you
Speaker 4: get into kind of those areas, then that training can
Speaker 4: take quite a bit longer because it's what we would
Speaker 4: call like a lower odor profile, so it's just less stinky,
Speaker 4: or it's really really specific. If you're thinking about the difference,
Speaker 4: you know, if I want a dog to find elk poop,
Speaker 4: that's pretty straightforward. But if I want the dog to
Speaker 4: tell me the difference between an elk with chronic wasting
Speaker 4: disease and an elk without chronic wasting disease. Now we're
Speaker 4: starting to get to the point where the dog is
Speaker 4: trying to identify a really really small, small signal among
Speaker 4: like the entire odor profile of an elk scat. There's
Speaker 4: just a little bit in there that tells us whether
Speaker 4: or not it's chronic wasting disease. And that's there's a
Speaker 4: project out of the pen VAT working dogs that are
Speaker 4: working on that. It's extremely challenging but very very cool work.
Speaker 3: On our website, we're going to link more research on
Speaker 3: that from Penn University's Vet department on chronic wasting disease
Speaker 3: having been detected in the Hog Heaven Reserve in Montana
Speaker 3: as well as in Michigan. A not at all alarming
Speaker 3: headline read researchers worn zombie deer disease could spread to humans.
Speaker 3: And if you're like, what is a preon? Why does
Speaker 3: it sound like a computer part, Well, it's a misfolded protein.
Speaker 3: And we talk more about proteins and how they fold
Speaker 3: with doctor Raven Baxter aka Raven the Science Maven in
Speaker 3: her episode on Molecular Biology, and we also address it
Speaker 3: in the two part Servitology episode All about Deer with
Speaker 3: not one but two Rhannon's who Study Deer. Speaking of
Speaker 3: other episodes, last week's Ethnosynology episode with David E and
Speaker 3: How discussed how dogs are a biotechnology which not only
Speaker 3: could outsmell a machine, but could also probably chew it
Speaker 3: up and leave it for dead. Are dogs better at
Speaker 3: that than machines? Or are they quicker or are they
Speaker 3: more portable? What's the benefit to using a little cutie
Speaker 3: babies that love working as opposed to a sample a
Speaker 3: machine in the field.
Speaker 4: So one of my mentors, Simon goad Bois, who's out
Speaker 4: of dal Housie University, he thinks that in all likelihood,
Speaker 4: in our lifetimes we're going to see machines taking over
Speaker 4: things like medical detection. So you know, you hear sometimes
Speaker 4: about the cancer sniffing dogs or dogs that are able
Speaker 4: to sniff PTSD those sorts of things. There's a pretty
Speaker 4: good chance that we're going to see devices that can
Speaker 4: do that in our lifetimes. But that's partially because you're
Speaker 4: taking a sample. Maybe you've got like a you can
Speaker 4: imagine a device that you breathe into, like a breathalyzer.
Speaker 4: Basically that would be pretty easy to actually create the
Speaker 4: device that can do the old faction and everything else.
Speaker 4: But when we're talking like our work in Alaska, you know,
Speaker 4: Barley was covering sixteen eighteen kilometers, which I don't know
Speaker 4: what that is in miles, like ten or twelve miles
Speaker 4: maybe in a day. If we had a device that
Speaker 4: was going to do that, one of us would probably
Speaker 4: have to be carrying it. I know they've piloted some
Speaker 4: that are like wheeled, but we're not working on terrain
Speaker 4: that you could wheel something around. There also was a
Speaker 4: really interesting study done by the Department of Defense a
Speaker 4: while ago where they had one of these like old
Speaker 4: factometers on wheels and they compared it to a dog,
Speaker 4: and it was just a lot slower because basically dogs
Speaker 4: are a lot more efficient at searching an area, and
Speaker 4: maybe with appropriate training, the human who was manning that
Speaker 4: machine could have gotten better at it. But it's just
Speaker 4: not likely to be something we see in our lifetimes.
Speaker 4: And also, you know, so I don't want to carry
Speaker 4: something like that.
Speaker 3: So heavy, expensive, not delicate enough in their abilities, and
Speaker 3: also they don't exist now eco odorology dogs, they're not
Speaker 3: going to be phased out anytime soon. Also, machines can't
Speaker 3: hang in the field like Barley or Niffler or Ellie
Speaker 3: Suki Scottie or Alie.
Speaker 4: A lot of those those instruments are not going to
Speaker 4: be waterproof. They're not going to be mudproof. You know,
Speaker 4: They're not gonna be something that you can like drop
Speaker 4: and pick up in the mud and like keep going.
Speaker 4: Versus the dogs, like, there are problems, you know. They
Speaker 4: the dogs get ticks, the dogs can get sick, the
Speaker 4: dogs can get injured, But a machine could also get injured,
Speaker 4: I suppose, oh, if you think about it that way.
Speaker 4: But they're overall just a little bit heartier than like
Speaker 4: most machines are.
Speaker 3: If there's ever a Boston Dynamics dog that has an
Speaker 3: eco odorological device, again, that's not going to be our lifetime.
Speaker 3: It's also going to be much creepier and expensive, I imagine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean I can imagine a couple upsides.
Speaker 4: Like the biggest thing I complain about now that I'm
Speaker 4: a PhD student is trying to manage the energy level
Speaker 4: and the ongoing training of the dogs when I'm not
Speaker 4: in the field and kind of constantly needing to Like,
Speaker 4: you know, I was up at six point thirty this
Speaker 4: morning and took the dogs for a run in the
Speaker 4: rain in Oregon, and like that was kind of miserable,
Speaker 4: and it would be nice to have something that I
Speaker 4: could just take the batteries out of and then take
Speaker 4: out again before the field sees it. But also then
Speaker 4: I wouldn't get to live with my dogs, so I
Speaker 4: wouldn't actually trade them for something like that. But occasionally,
Speaker 4: you know, the dogs do require a lot of year
Speaker 4: round maintenance.
Speaker 3: Do they tend to be rescues or do you need
Speaker 3: a specific breed?
Speaker 4: It varies a little bit depending on which organization you're
Speaker 4: talking to. So like within Canine Conservationists, four of our
Speaker 4: five dogs are rescues, and.
Speaker 3: Kayla says that's within their core group, but when they
Speaker 3: hire contractors, about ninety percent of those working dogs are
Speaker 3: rescues as well. Some groups prefer to have the family
Speaker 3: line medical history of a breeder dog, but Kayla says
Speaker 3: Canine Conservationists actually prefer rescues because they're older and they're
Speaker 3: ready to train, as opposed to what she calls the
Speaker 3: floppy sloppy puppy. Years now, most military and government worker dogs, however,
Speaker 3: are from breeders, and part of that it's just because
Speaker 3: they have the budget. I looked up what that budget
Speaker 3: is and found that around LA, the current price for
Speaker 3: a police dog is approximately twelve thousand dollars just to
Speaker 3: get the dog, not including the training, which runs about
Speaker 3: thirteen thousand dollars, but then maintenance, training, equipment, supplies, and
Speaker 3: vet care. That's the guacamole of the dog budget that's
Speaker 3: going to run you extra. How much harder is it
Speaker 3: to sniff out chronic wasting disease and elk or a
Speaker 3: wolf that has the flu than finding cocaine in luggage?
Speaker 4: Ooh, my gut. Reaction is finding cocaine and luggage is
Speaker 4: hard because people are actively trying to conceal it from
Speaker 4: the dogs. And some people are smart about that, a
Speaker 4: lot of them do, I understanding it or not. But
Speaker 4: that is something that we don't have to deal with
Speaker 4: in the conservation dog world. We don't have to deal with,
Speaker 4: you know, samples generally that have been like wrapped in
Speaker 4: a bunch of plastic and then dipped in gasoline and
Speaker 4: then buried in coffee grounds or something thing like that,
Speaker 4: you know, which is what sometimes is done with trafficking,
Speaker 4: Uh wow, to fool the dogs. I think you know,
Speaker 4: if you had just plain samples out. The chronic wasting
Speaker 4: disease is probably harder. But the problem with cocaine is
Speaker 4: that it's concealed.
Speaker 3: Whenever there's like a dog at the airport, I'm always afraid, like,
Speaker 3: what if someone brushed up against me with drugs or something. Yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone's like, oh, this is so cute, that's so weird.
Speaker 3: But what other industries use ecoorderology other than conservation and
Speaker 3: trafficking and law enforcement? What other applications are there for
Speaker 3: dogs who are really really good at their noses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, if we're talking ecotology, that probably
Speaker 4: is primarily the conservation ecology those sorts of things because
Speaker 4: it is ego. But then we also can get into
Speaker 4: a lot of it then goes into law enforcement. So yeah,
Speaker 4: we've got the drug dogs. A lot of us know
Speaker 4: about those. There also are quite a few firearms detection dogs.
Speaker 4: Primarily this is a little bleak in US schools. There's
Speaker 4: kind of an increasing push for dogs that can find
Speaker 4: firearms in schools. I don't love that that is a
Speaker 4: place that we're at, but it is an industry that exists.
Speaker 4: And then explosives detection dogs. I have a couple acquaintances
Speaker 4: who trained dogs to do, like they check stadiums before
Speaker 4: like the Super Bowl, those sorts of things, and then
Speaker 4: a lot of you know, missing persons dogs, dogs that
Speaker 4: maybe trail suspects, human remains detection dogs will also look
Speaker 4: for again missing people. And then there's live Find disaster
Speaker 4: search and rescue dogs. So we're recording. I guess it's
Speaker 4: been a while since Helene at this point.
Speaker 3: And Helene was a category for hurricane that hit the
Speaker 3: southeast United States in September twenty twenty four with two
Speaker 3: hundred and nineteen people killed and nearly thirty missing.
Speaker 4: Still, you know, if we think of Helene, I know
Speaker 4: that it was a huge mobilization of live find disaster
Speaker 4: search and rescue dogs that were getting sent out to
Speaker 4: then try to find people who were in the floodwaters.
Speaker 4: And we're still alive and needing to be prioritized for rescue.
Speaker 3: Why is it important for you to get the word out?
Speaker 3: Why are you so passionate about this?
Speaker 4: Oh, that's such a good question. I mean because I
Speaker 4: love it, Like I just love getting to talk about it.
Speaker 4: I think I have the coolest job in the world,
Speaker 4: and I like to get to tell other people about it,
Speaker 4: and I like how happy it makes people. It's nice
Speaker 4: to have something to do with conservation and the environment
Speaker 4: that makes people feel good. I also think that there's
Speaker 4: a lot of applications for conservation detection dogs that haven't
Speaker 4: been explored fully yet. The more people who are aware
Speaker 4: of it and are getting involved, the more likely we
Speaker 4: are to connect be able to continue moving this industry
Speaker 4: forward in a really responsible and thoughtful and evidence based way.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. I've interviewed to a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are wildlife collegists and they say that they
Speaker 3: wanted to start in veterinary medicine because they love dogs.
Speaker 3: But then veterinary medicine is a really difficult field emotionally
Speaker 3: as well. It's really hard to get into vet school.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting that you work in conservation but you
Speaker 3: also get to work with dogs as you're in the
Speaker 3: film field.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean that is one of the other things
Speaker 4: that I always really have loved about this field is that,
Speaker 4: you know, when I was a little girl, I was
Speaker 4: obsessed with Jane Goodall, and I you know, I'd watch
Speaker 4: all these documentaries of her interacting with the primates, and
Speaker 4: you know, her like handing that banana to David Graybeard.
Speaker 2: It was the first time that a chimpanzee reached out
Speaker 2: to make contact with me, and I.
Speaker 4: Was just like, oh my god, this is what biology is,
Speaker 4: this is what I want to do. And I was
Speaker 4: watching Steve Irwin and you know, like that's what I
Speaker 4: wanted to do. And then the further I got into
Speaker 4: my career and realized, like a lot of times we're
Speaker 4: not actually interacting with these animals at all. We're not
Speaker 4: touching them, we're not playing with them. And to some
Speaker 4: of that, I think there's a huge ethical benefit to that.
Speaker 4: I think that is a good thing, but emotionally it
Speaker 4: was disappointing. So having this domestic animal that I do
Speaker 4: get to sleep in my bed and I get to
Speaker 4: you know, feed the little chicken nuggets and told how
Speaker 4: cute he is, you know, and even just like checking
Speaker 4: them for ticks at the end of a field day,
Speaker 4: and like having time to like groom them and hang
Speaker 4: out together and just have that emotional bond. It genuinely
Speaker 4: is so nice and it's so meaningful, and I don't
Speaker 4: think it should be trivialized as just a silly emotional
Speaker 4: thing that we want, Like I think loving animals is
Speaker 4: such an important driver for so many of us, and
Speaker 4: it's it's not something that I think we should just
Speaker 4: dismiss because it is an emotion, but it's nice to
Speaker 4: have a way to express it that isn't harassing wildlife. Right.
Speaker 3: It also seems like other people have expressed concerns about
Speaker 3: field work. Sometimes you're in remote places, sometimes you're in
Speaker 3: places you're not familiar with. Sometimes women people of color
Speaker 3: have more issues with harassment, and it seems like having
Speaker 3: a field companion by your side is also maybe strategically
Speaker 3: kind of comforting.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I could definitely see that.
Speaker 3: We talk about this in a few episodes, like in
Speaker 3: the wonderful Karina Newsom's Wildlife Ecology episode, which is all
Speaker 3: about field work.
Speaker 4: It's so funny because it's been so long since I
Speaker 4: was in the field without a dog. But I'm sure
Speaker 4: that's something that I would I would notice the absence,
Speaker 4: and yeah, would feel lonely, less safe. Yeah. Sometimes we're
Speaker 4: staying in like sketchy roadside motels, halfway between Place A
Speaker 4: and Place B, you know, on the side of a
Speaker 4: highway somewhere, and it's nice to have the dogs with you,
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 3: And you were talking about your PhD work. What are
Speaker 3: you looking for with the wolves? What kind of data
Speaker 3: are you collecting?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the nice thing is as far as like
Speaker 4: the harvest side of things with the wolves, they actually
Speaker 4: when they're harvested, there's a sample taken from those wolves,
Speaker 4: and it's all reported with Alaska Department of Fishing Game.
Speaker 4: So I just get to use those samples later on.
Speaker 4: So what we're actually looking at with these Scott samples
Speaker 4: is the Alexander Archipelago in southeast Alaska.
Speaker 3: And Kayla says, if you make an L with your
Speaker 3: right hand, like you were going to put like a
Speaker 3: shape of an L on your forehead, if you will,
Speaker 3: and then you turn it counterclockwise about a quarter of
Speaker 3: a turn, you got Alaska.
Speaker 4: And then you've got your thumb pointing down that is
Speaker 4: roughly Alaska without the bit that goes out into the
Speaker 4: Baring Sea. Right, I'm Wisconsin. Sorry, like every state. It
Speaker 4: has to become a hand to me. Yeah, the Alexander
Speaker 4: Archipelago is like way down at the tip of your thumbnail.
Speaker 3: Oh okay.
Speaker 4: Anyway, so we've got like a thousand islands in this
Speaker 4: Alexander Archipelago and Prince of Wales Island is kind of
Speaker 4: in the center of that, and the vast majority of
Speaker 4: wolf research in this area has centered on Prince of
Speaker 4: Wales because it's really accessible. You can get a direct
Speaker 4: flight from juneo.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: But there's a thousand islands in this archipelago and these
Speaker 4: wolves are spread out across all of these, well maybe
Speaker 4: not all of them. That's kind of the question. We
Speaker 4: don't know what other islands these wolves are using, and
Speaker 4: we don't know like how big does an island have
Speaker 4: to be for a wolfpack to make it their whole
Speaker 4: territory or you know, once it's this size. Are they
Speaker 4: kind of using multiple islands? How do they choose to
Speaker 4: move between different islands, How do different islands affect what
Speaker 4: they're eating. We don't really know much about that when
Speaker 4: we're kind of getting out into these smaller islands. So
Speaker 4: my research is it's super cool. We're out on a
Speaker 4: boat all the time, and we're taking this little tough
Speaker 4: boat from like islands to island and doing searches across
Speaker 4: all of these different islands. I think I counted it up,
Speaker 4: and we're somewhere between twenty five and thirty islands last year,
Speaker 4: which you know, in the grand scheme of a thousand,
Speaker 4: not that many. But also a lot of these islands
Speaker 4: are like a couple acres, They're like rocks in the ocean,
Speaker 4: you know. And some of them you actually can't get
Speaker 4: the boat onto because of the way the cliffs are
Speaker 4: or you know, the beaches and whatnot. It's just actually
Speaker 4: not safe to land a boat. So that's part of
Speaker 4: it sometimes as well. But yeah, so it's a lot
Speaker 4: of really interesting questions about like island biogeography and landscape
Speaker 4: ecology and wolf movement. And these wolves eat sea otters,
Speaker 4: and we don't necessarily know why a wolf would choose
Speaker 4: to eat a sea otter instead of a deer. Is
Speaker 4: it just seatta abundance? Is it something about what makes
Speaker 4: them vulnerable to wolves? And so with a lot of
Speaker 4: fancy maps and a lot of fancy pipe heating and
Speaker 4: a lot of poop samples, we can get to those answers.
Speaker 4: And that's kind of why I'm in the PhD at
Speaker 4: this point, because I at this point feel relatively confident
Speaker 4: in training the dogs to find the poop. But then
Speaker 4: all of the questions that come after that, there is
Speaker 4: so so so much more that happens once you've got
Speaker 4: that scout sample.
Speaker 3: How are these wolves making it from island to island?
Speaker 4: They swim?
Speaker 3: How far can they go?
Speaker 4: Like a couple of kilometers?
Speaker 3: Like what they can wolfy paddle?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they just wolf be paddle their way through. We
Speaker 4: actually saw a deer swimming between islands once. The deer
Speaker 4: actually will swim even more than the wolves. Or maybe
Speaker 4: it's just that there's a lot more deer than there
Speaker 4: are wolves, so you're more likely to to kind of
Speaker 4: catch them going between. But no, we've we've seen wolves
Speaker 4: on our camera traps, or we've seen evidence of wolves
Speaker 4: on really really tiny islands that like we know for
Speaker 4: a fact, there's no way they were hanging out there
Speaker 4: for long like they were coming through. Maybe there was
Speaker 4: a deer on the island that they're just gonna you know,
Speaker 4: corner really easily, because it's really easy to catch one
Speaker 4: deer on one tiny island, Oh wow. Yeah, Or maybe
Speaker 4: they were using it as a stopover between two islands.
Speaker 4: Who knows.
Speaker 3: Do you think orcas ever take any out while they're
Speaker 3: wolf paddling?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I've been wondering this. Probably like occasionally
Speaker 4: you'd have to be super unlucky as a wolf, because again,
Speaker 4: there's so few of them and they don't do it
Speaker 4: all that often. But I think we've all kind of
Speaker 4: seen that, Maybe not all of us, but I know
Speaker 4: I've seen this, like meme or whatever of like just
Speaker 4: a reminder that orcas are the number one marine predators
Speaker 4: of moose. I wolf found a lot of food, so like,
Speaker 4: orcas do get moose when moose are swimming, so I
Speaker 4: don't see why they wouldn't. But I've never heard of it.
Speaker 4: I don't know if anyone's actually looked or exactly how
Speaker 4: you would figure that out. I'm sure it's happened once.
Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't it weird how marine mammals whales orcas are
Speaker 3: descended from like a servidological type of animal and then
Speaker 3: they became marine mammals.
Speaker 4: Evolution is so wild.
Speaker 3: It's so weird that it's like a former ungulate eating
Speaker 3: an ungulate. It's nuts. But what is it like to
Speaker 3: do this field work where you're in the middle of
Speaker 3: absolutely nowhere on tiny islands like on boats. Do you
Speaker 3: get seasick? How cold is it? What is it look like?
Speaker 4: It's very rainy and wet. A lot of the time.
Speaker 4: We had a very very wet summer and this so
Speaker 4: this part of southeast Alaska gets twice as much annual
Speaker 4: rainfall as Seattle. So if you think Seattle is rainy,
Speaker 4: double it. And a lot of that happens in the
Speaker 4: winter when we're not there. But still it's very wet
Speaker 4: a lot of days. You know, I'm going to have
Speaker 4: to work in fahrenheit here, so sorry, I know everyone
Speaker 4: who works in celsius, but like you know, it's like
Speaker 4: a highest sixty and rainy, and then you know overnight
Speaker 4: lows in the forties and thirties.
Speaker 3: So that's like sixteen degrees to negative one degree celsius.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, We're American. We have a lot of problems here.
Speaker 4: I luckily don't get seasick when I'm hiring texts. That's
Speaker 4: something we talk to people about and something we put
Speaker 4: in our job posting of like, hey, we are spending
Speaker 4: like two to four hours a day on a tiny
Speaker 4: boat in choppy waters. Like if seasickness is a thing
Speaker 4: for you, this probably isn't a job. And if you're
Speaker 4: not sure but you think it might be a problem,
Speaker 4: probably not the job for you.
Speaker 3: What kind of how big. Are the boats? Are they zodiacs?
Speaker 4: Yeah? No, no, luckily not. It's it's a thirty five
Speaker 4: foot tough boat. So it's kind of got an enclosed
Speaker 4: hull in the front that actually is heated, it's got seats,
Speaker 4: it's very cozy, and then it's got an open back
Speaker 4: where we can throw all of our gear. So it's not
Speaker 4: too bad. It is just choppy occasionally, especially when we're
Speaker 4: going out to some of the outer islands, and sometimes
Speaker 4: you are kind of getting exposed to like the full
Speaker 4: on Pacific swell of you know, open oceano and then
Speaker 4: a lot of times we try to stick to the
Speaker 4: inside as much as we can to mitigate that. We
Speaker 4: get see whales most of the time, though, like we
Speaker 4: see humpbacks all the time. We see seaatters all the time.
Speaker 4: The beach combing is incredible. I've found so many like
Speaker 4: cool new to breaks and sea slugs and like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, I found a seaatter skull this summer. That
Speaker 4: was a big highlight for me. You know, it's just
Speaker 4: it's so cool. It's just amazing.
Speaker 3: I don't know, well, I had to interview the dogs
Speaker 3: before you adopt them. How do you know if a
Speaker 3: dog is going to up chuck kibble. The cat has
Speaker 3: something to say about it. Kayla says that her cat
Speaker 3: is fine on boats too, which is not something that
Speaker 3: most people ever have the opportunity to find out and
Speaker 3: maybe should only be explored with an open mind and
Speaker 3: some heavy leather gloves. But yeah, how does she know
Speaker 3: if the dogs are going to barf or not?
Speaker 4: Good question? I think at this point both of my
Speaker 4: dogs have been in cars and trains and buses enough
Speaker 4: that I feel relatively confident that they're okay on most
Speaker 4: forms of transportation. We do have within Cannon conservationists, we
Speaker 4: have a dog who's going to have his first boat
Speaker 4: experience this coming summer, So what we might try to
Speaker 4: do is get him used to like an ATV or
Speaker 4: something else that's a little open, a little bit choppier.
Speaker 4: But generally our dogs just have such a close relationship
Speaker 4: with their handlers, and we look for dogs that are
Speaker 4: resilient and trust people and are willing to kind of
Speaker 4: try new things with us, because that's so important in
Speaker 4: so many different ways that so far hasn't been a
Speaker 4: huge issue. I know other people who have flowed and
Speaker 4: helicopters with their conservation dogs, without necessarily doing a ton
Speaker 4: of prior training. And again because of that kind of
Speaker 4: like working dog bond, it often works out.
Speaker 3: Okay, oh, can I ask you questions from listeners?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yes, ah, they.
Speaker 3: Have great ones. But before we get there, let's dip
Speaker 3: into our pockets and pull out a treat of cash
Speaker 3: for a cause. This one is easy. It's in Kayla's
Speaker 3: name and we're donating to her and her wonderful colleagues
Speaker 3: work at Canine Conservationists dot org, and Kayla's mission, alongside
Speaker 3: colleagues Rachel Heather, Jenna, Vanessa, and Bernice, is to unite
Speaker 3: highly trained conservation detective dog teams with researchers to collect
Speaker 3: scientific data. And they provide mentorship, education, and foster collaboration
Speaker 3: among scientists and novice handlers and local communities. And you
Speaker 3: can donate or learn more at Canine Conservationists dot org
Speaker 3: kan a nine Conservationist dot org and that donation was
Speaker 3: made possible by sponsors of the show.
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Speaker 3: All right, let's root through your questions. Patrons. You two
Speaker 3: con shibit them before we record by joining at patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash ologies. It costs one big dollar a
Speaker 3: month to join, So let us now ask a smart question,
Speaker 3: ask a smart person all kinds of stuff that was accidental,
Speaker 3: which is sad. Space boys wants to know. Hello. I
Speaker 3: was wondering how hard it is to train the dogs.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, the first time was so hard. I cried
Speaker 4: all the time. I was sure that Barley and I
Speaker 4: couldn't do this. I was sure that he wasn't cut
Speaker 4: out for it. I was sure I was not a
Speaker 4: good enough trainer. It has gotten easier in general every time,
Speaker 4: and the dogs get better at it too. So first
Speaker 4: time dog, first time trainer, really really tough situation. I
Speaker 4: wish that there was a better way to like it.
Speaker 4: Like with horseback riding, generally you don't put a green
Speaker 4: rider on a green horse. That's something that we tried
Speaker 4: to do as well in the working dog world when
Speaker 4: we can.
Speaker 3: Lauren Read from Chattanooga, Tennessee, wants to know, Hi, I
Speaker 3: guess I'm wondering. How do you know if the dog
Speaker 3: is going to be good at the job.
Speaker 4: The quickest little test that we do is we take
Speaker 4: their toy. So we look for a dog who's like
Speaker 4: bonkers for the toy, and we'll hold their collar back.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we'll even cover their eyes and we throw that
Speaker 4: toy into really really tall grass or somewhere else where
Speaker 4: it's impossible for the dog to see. We release the dog,
Speaker 4: and what we're looking for there is that the dog
Speaker 4: is focused and keeps looking. We don't actually necessarily like
Speaker 4: it if in that test the dog finds the toy
Speaker 4: right away, because that just tells us they found the
Speaker 4: toy quickly. What we want to see is that tenacity
Speaker 4: that when they can't find it, they keep looking and
Speaker 4: they keep trying. Oh So that's like the number one
Speaker 4: test that if if I got to ask someone one
Speaker 4: thing about a dog before I had to say yes
Speaker 4: or no to it. That's what I would ask for.
Speaker 3: Oh, Grammy would be so bad at that, absolutely just
Speaker 3: the worst. She's like, don't look at me. But actually
Speaker 3: speaking of certain certain animals being good or bad, mac
Speaker 3: Nut Cookie, Earl and grammle Can, Hunter, Roberts, Tiger, Udy,
Speaker 3: Anna Dylan, Migan, Walker, and Cleocatra all wants to know.
Speaker 3: In Cleocatra's words, do detection cats exist? Anna Dylan wants
Speaker 3: to know any other animals to do this? Conservation cats
Speaker 3: are people, and there's like, obviously some cat people. Tiger
Speaker 3: Unity says cat's noses are supposed to be even better
Speaker 3: than dogs. Are there any efforts to train cats? Also,
Speaker 3: there are rats that sniff out land mines, which we've
Speaker 3: covered in our Mammalogy episode. Could rats be used for
Speaker 3: this kind of work too? So? Yeah, are dogs the
Speaker 3: only ones?
Speaker 4: Dogs are not the only ones? Yeah? The rats are
Speaker 4: probably the next biggest example. There are these Gambian pouch strats.
Speaker 4: They're super cool. They're used primarily for tuberculosis and land mines.
Speaker 4: I probably wouldn't use one for my work in Alaska
Speaker 4: because again, of the amount of distance we're covering. Okay,
Speaker 4: it just wouldn't necessarily be fair to ask like a
Speaker 4: three pound animal to do that.
Speaker 3: Just a heads up. We have a whole mammalogy episode
Speaker 3: with doctor Danielle and Lee who studies pouched rats used
Speaker 3: in land mine detection. They wear backpacks. We also have
Speaker 3: an episode with Bobby Corrigan, whose entire career revolves around
Speaker 3: sewer rats, and he made me cry about sweet sweet rats.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna link those episodes in the show notes.
Speaker 4: But I can see other situations in which, like on
Speaker 4: a if you're searching a boat for zebra muscles, a
Speaker 4: rat would actually potentially be a better choice than a
Speaker 4: dog in something like that. I don't know if anyone
Speaker 4: doing anything with cats. With cats, what we struggle with
Speaker 4: is the motivation and the focus. So and that's kind
Speaker 4: of where we come back to, Like detection wolverine would
Speaker 4: be awesome, but like, can I convince a wolverine to
Speaker 4: look for what I want? And can I get that
Speaker 4: wolverine to like stick with me and work with me
Speaker 4: in the woods? Not so much. Kind of the same
Speaker 4: problem generally speaking with cats.
Speaker 3: That tracks macnet cookie and I know the answer to this,
Speaker 3: which I know it's a yes or no question, so
Speaker 3: it's exciting. Can a shelter dog be trained to be
Speaker 3: a detection dog like the Rogue Detection Team does for
Speaker 3: Sierra Nevada Red Fox. Yes, absolutely, yeah, of course. And
Speaker 3: you know some people this is an interesting question. Melissa deboscin,
Speaker 3: first time question asker wanted to second the inquiries about
Speaker 3: whether most of the dogs are purpose bread Katie B
Speaker 3: already said are certain breeds better? Like? How are police
Speaker 3: dogs usually German shepherds?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well so partially the German shepherd thing is like
Speaker 4: it's just historic. There are just these big breeding programs
Speaker 4: that breed dogs and sell them to police departments, and
Speaker 4: they work with German shepherds for the most part. That
Speaker 4: is changing now there's kind of this push towards what
Speaker 4: we call the floppies. So you know, like if you
Speaker 4: go to an airport now you're more likely to see
Speaker 4: a pointer than a German shepherd, and there's this belief
Speaker 4: that they're less scary, and I think that is fair.
Speaker 4: I think most people are less scared of a pointer
Speaker 4: than a German shepherd. The other thing that you have
Speaker 4: to think about with police dogs, so The reason you
Speaker 4: see German shepherds in Belgian malinwa is more in police
Speaker 4: dogs than you do in like conservation. A lot of
Speaker 4: those dogs are dual trained, so they're not just sniffing
Speaker 4: out drugs. They're also trained to bite the person that
Speaker 4: the cop sends them after. So that's where you kind
Speaker 4: of want a dog who is interested in bite things
Speaker 4: and bitey sports and biting activities. We're not looking for
Speaker 4: that in conservation, so we don't get quite as many shepherds,
Speaker 4: although they often I have worked with shepherds in this
Speaker 4: line of work.
Speaker 3: Speaking of biting, Katie Bardy, Kyle Cunningham Roads, Heather Crane,
Speaker 3: Andy Pepper, interesting stuff. Kyle Cunningham Rhodes asked how do
Speaker 3: you deal with crittering and other high prey drive behaviors?
Speaker 3: And Katie asks, how do you train them not to
Speaker 3: go after the animal? Thinking of my dog who will
Speaker 3: go nuts when he sees a rabbit.
Speaker 4: That is the number two thing that I would like
Speaker 4: to ask someone when deciding whether or not to hire
Speaker 4: a dog for me personally and within canon conservationists. If
Speaker 4: we've got a dog who has everything going for it
Speaker 4: but is nuts about trying to go after squirrels, it's
Speaker 4: still a no for us. You know, my dogs have
Speaker 4: come into contact with jaguars in national parks in Guatemala.
Speaker 3: So when I was on the trail with her, Kayla
Speaker 3: told me more about critter sightings in the wild.
Speaker 4: We saw bears in Alaska, but they as soon as
Speaker 4: they hear you come in thet they're out of there.
Speaker 4: They don't want anything to do with you. The wolves
Speaker 4: more or less the same. They're a little more curious,
Speaker 4: but most animals they don't want anything to do with us.
Speaker 4: We've seen jaguar. One jaguar when we were out that
Speaker 4: was in Guatemala, and I actually so Nifflair, my younger
Speaker 4: dogs were and he had just found a scat and
Speaker 4: I picked up the ball and yeah, goodbye, throw the
Speaker 4: ball and we all look up to watching it flirt
Speaker 4: chase the ball and then someone goes jaguar and I
Speaker 4: had thrown the ball at the jaguar. It was fine.
Speaker 4: It was quite a ways down the trail, but yeah,
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, and if I come on dog
Speaker 4: with that ball right now, thank you, goodbye, and only
Speaker 4: going up like octave by octa. Yeah, again, not a
Speaker 4: big deal, just really cool to get to see a jaguara.
Speaker 3: Do you just go on and have a normal Wednesday
Speaker 3: in the jungle After that.
Speaker 4: Then as we all kind of like, okay, we're gonna
Speaker 4: put the dog on leash and like we're done searching
Speaker 4: for a couple of minutes, we got to go see
Speaker 4: if we can see more of this jaguar. We couldn't
Speaker 4: get another glimpse of it, but yeah, that's totally work. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like that's that's It's such a cool big cat sighting,
Speaker 4: not one that we were ever expecting to get in
Speaker 4: that part of the world. Like you can go to
Speaker 4: some places in Brazil where you're pretty likely to get
Speaker 4: to see jaguars den squadmal and rainforest, we were not
Speaker 4: expecting to get seat one. So it was so freaking cool.
Speaker 3: Did the hair stand up on the back your neck?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, And the funny because my first response was
Speaker 4: disbelief because it was actually a lot smaller than I expected.
Speaker 4: So I was like, are we sure that it's not
Speaker 4: an osal lot And then I was like, no, it's
Speaker 4: joe big for an acelin. I was like, we're sure
Speaker 4: it's not a puma, And then you know, we got
Speaker 4: the binos on it and it's like, no, it's got spots.
Speaker 4: It was probably just a young guy, but yeah, totally
Speaker 4: like oh shivers, Like we were all high for the
Speaker 4: rest of the day. Just really cool.
Speaker 3: What were you guys looking for in Guatemala with jaguars?
Speaker 4: So that is actually now my lab mate at Oregon
Speaker 4: State and roommate Ellen Dimmitt, is doing research on jaguars,
Speaker 4: puma's asalts markets, all of those carnivores on basically creating
Speaker 4: like a food web and figuring out what they're all
Speaker 4: eating and how they're all moving and how they're using.
Speaker 4: This is the Guatemala Maya biosphere reserve. So cool.
Speaker 3: So yeah, dogs got to keep their cool. Don't freak out, man,
Speaker 3: you're at work.
Speaker 4: Like, most dogs do have some sort of interest in
Speaker 4: like fast retreating prey animals. Most dogs are going to
Speaker 4: be interested in bunnies or squirrels to some degree. I'm
Speaker 4: not saying my dogs are robots and that they're perfect.
Speaker 4: They obviously, you know, a squirrel runs across their line
Speaker 4: of sight, they notice it.
Speaker 3: In the dog's defense. This happened to me immediately on
Speaker 3: the trail. It's funny that I just saw a squirrel
Speaker 3: and I was distracted by it. Yeah, Varley was not, yes,
Speaker 3: which says a lot about us as different animals.
Speaker 4: So we teach the dogs that disengaging from interesting things
Speaker 4: in the environment on their own pays. We reward them
Speaker 4: for that, and then we work on safety skills as well.
Speaker 4: So like in the case of seeing a jaguar in Guatemala,
Speaker 4: I recalled nifflair back to me. I just put my
Speaker 4: hand on a schollar. I told him how perfect he was.
Speaker 4: He got a huge reward. In the case of a
Speaker 4: rattlesnakes we come into contact with that's where we might
Speaker 4: use like an emergency down where I'm going to tell
Speaker 4: the dog to lie down. They lie down, no matter
Speaker 4: where they are, no matter what's happening, they stay there.
Speaker 4: I move around the snake and come and collect them,
Speaker 4: and then we move on.
Speaker 3: You're mentioned following jaguars and I know you're looking for
Speaker 3: scatt and Aaron White said, my dog loved eating catpoop
Speaker 3: and other stomach turning delights. How do you keep the
Speaker 3: thing you're looking for from being snacked upon? And Ruben
Speaker 3: also said, how do you train the dogs to not
Speaker 3: eat the special poop? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, good question. Both of my dogs are like irredeemable
Speaker 4: litter box raiders. So the funny thing is both of
Speaker 4: my dogs do this recreationally, and like it's I've got
Speaker 4: like a Tom and Jerry set up in my house
Speaker 4: going right now, between me and the dogs and the
Speaker 4: litter box. It's like, it's crazy because they're so smart
Speaker 4: and I've trained them to problem solve and use their
Speaker 4: noses to get what they want, so it makes it
Speaker 4: really hard to outsmart them, and I'm very tired. But
Speaker 4: generally what we look for, you know, when we've got
Speaker 4: a dog who is like as over the top nuts
Speaker 4: for their ball as our dogs are, and they know
Speaker 4: that finding the scat without touching it gets them their ball,
Speaker 4: that generally makes it pretty easy for them to learn
Speaker 4: not to eat it. So my dogs will eat poop
Speaker 4: recreationally but won't do it in work. Yeah, they know
Speaker 4: that finding it gets their ball, and they want the
Speaker 4: ball more than they want the poop.
Speaker 3: It's like a doctor who's like, I don't drink on
Speaker 3: the job, but I do like a whiskey at home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So well, you know, some people were curious about your
Speaker 3: own experiences. Z Shiragane wanted to know what's your wildest
Speaker 3: moment while you're out training with this. Dogs can be
Speaker 3: both an animal or human interaction, just something that had
Speaker 3: you reeling afterwards. Can and Cody wanted to know what's
Speaker 3: your funniest dog related story or mishap, anything happened to
Speaker 3: you that just you could not shake.
Speaker 4: Okay, so funniest stories. This summer in Alaska, we just
Speaker 4: had so many like hilarious mishaps of trying to get
Speaker 4: the dog off the boat. So, as I said, we're
Speaker 4: on this like thirty five foot boat and we're going
Speaker 4: to these really remote islands, so there aren't dogs. Generally,
Speaker 4: if we can in deep enough water where we can
Speaker 4: kind of push the boat up against a cliff that
Speaker 4: then we can step out onto. But sometimes we're having
Speaker 4: to kind of go up into the beach and then
Speaker 4: you're stepping down and hoping that your boots are tall enough.
Speaker 4: But then you're in this situation where now you're standing
Speaker 4: in like mid calf deep water and now the boat
Speaker 4: is at your shoulder head height. I'm pretty short, so
Speaker 4: if you were taller than me, it wouldn't be quite
Speaker 4: as much of a problem. And now the dog is
Speaker 4: at head height, and you need to get the dog
Speaker 4: down and you don't want to sprain the dog's shoulder
Speaker 4: or anything at this point. So what we've trained Barley
Speaker 4: to do, and Barley is fifty pounds, so he is,
Speaker 4: you know, like somewhere between a third and a half
Speaker 4: of my weight to put his front paws on my
Speaker 4: shoulder and then he kind of like hops and I
Speaker 4: like catch his ass and then like do this like
Speaker 4: weird kettlebell move to get him onto the ground. And
Speaker 4: there were so many times this summer that I was
Speaker 4: either very close to or actually did like kind of
Speaker 4: each shit doing this. And then like everybody's wet, and
Speaker 4: like we're covered in kelp and you know it's raining anyway,
Speaker 4: so like whatever, we're just wet all the time.
Speaker 3: But there it's work. It's a job. They're like, it's
Speaker 3: a living. That's how I make my chicken. Do what
Speaker 3: you gotta do. You mentioned something about not maybe seeing
Speaker 3: the jaguar but smelling it, and Andy Pepper wanted to know,
Speaker 3: is it all old faction or does hearing come in
Speaker 3: to play too. Perry c said I had heard that
Speaker 3: dogs can read out and smell in the side of
Speaker 3: the nose at the same time. Is that true? Rachel
Speaker 3: gotthree wants to know if there's been any research on
Speaker 3: how their brains work, So the physiology of it. Are
Speaker 3: they using other senses?
Speaker 4: Yes, Oh my god it yeah. I'm like, I'm so excited.
Speaker 4: I'm like currently a little obsessed with the physiology of
Speaker 4: old faction. This summer, I was reading like a veterinary
Speaker 4: textbook on like the noses and old faction and just
Speaker 4: having the best time. So hearing no because we're working
Speaker 4: with Scott. Scott doesn't make a noise generally once it's
Speaker 4: on the ground.
Speaker 3: Well, that's good sight.
Speaker 4: Yes, Barley or the other dogs will occasionally like target
Speaker 4: rocks that look like Scott and like get close enough,
Speaker 4: take away with and then be like, oh no, definitely
Speaker 4: not scou And then as far as yeah, so yes,
Speaker 4: dogs can smell through their nose and exhale. I don't
Speaker 4: know if they excel at the same time. But so,
Speaker 4: if you look at your dog's snoop, right, there's like
Speaker 4: a hole in the center and then there's a slit
Speaker 4: to the side. The odor goes in the hole and
Speaker 4: then it actually has like a differential speed as it
Speaker 4: goes through so it slows down as it goes past
Speaker 4: all these scent receptors, so there's more time for it
Speaker 4: to be bound to these scent receptors. It does a
Speaker 4: hairpin turn, so it goes past them twice. It's also separated,
Speaker 4: so they can tell the difference between whether something is
Speaker 4: stronger on their right versus left side of their nose,
Speaker 4: which is crazy like cuckoo bananas to us, because again
Speaker 4: we are nose blind, like we just cannot fathom what
Speaker 4: they can smell, because they can smell through time, they
Speaker 4: can smell through space like they can smell it like
Speaker 4: fifth dimensions if you think about it too much. This
Speaker 4: is what I think about as a PhD student if
Speaker 4: I've taken an edible when I'm trying to unwind from research.
Speaker 4: But yes, and then as they exhale, it excels out
Speaker 4: through those slits on the side of their noses, which
Speaker 4: then keeps them from recycling that air, so they're not
Speaker 4: resampling the same air. But also as it exhales, that
Speaker 4: creates a little vortex that volatilizes the air on the ground,
Speaker 4: and kind of that in increased humidity can also aid
Speaker 4: in old faction. At least this is what it's thought,
Speaker 4: it's what's hypothesized and helps then bring more air back
Speaker 4: into that nostril, so they're like exhaling it and creating
Speaker 4: like this whole vortex around their face that again they
Speaker 4: can tell the difference between right and left. It's just, oh,
Speaker 4: it's so cool, it's so cool.
Speaker 3: Ali. They are also in possession of a Vomaron nasal
Speaker 3: organ or a Jacobsen organ that's at the top at
Speaker 3: the roof of their mouth, and the nerves of that
Speaker 3: go directly into the brain. Now, in the Gustatology episode,
Speaker 3: we discussed why my daughter Grammy opens and closes her
Speaker 3: mouth kind of like a puppet in fast motion when
Speaker 3: she tastes something new, and learned that she's using that
Speaker 3: Vomeron nasal organ in addition to her olfactory system. Also,
Speaker 3: your dog, should you have one, has a wet nose
Speaker 3: because particles in moisture heavy air are captured more easily
Speaker 3: by wet mucous membranes. So you, with your dry nose
Speaker 3: and your extensive smell, you can only dream of what
Speaker 3: they have.
Speaker 4: If you think of, like, our visual section of our
Speaker 4: brain is really huge. Their old faction section is really
Speaker 4: really large.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, given that they're so sensitive, Rich Tomos
Speaker 3: Simpson first question asker, and Kareem the climate communicator Wildminster
Speaker 3: wanted to know, in Rich's words, how often do they
Speaker 3: have to be reminded what they're smelling for? Do they
Speaker 3: have a cheese course to cleanse the palette before a
Speaker 3: different smell? And Korean says like the tiny jars of
Speaker 3: coffee beans at perfumeeries.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I think if you're working with dogs in
Speaker 4: like a laboratory setting where you want them to do
Speaker 4: these like really fine level discrimination works. So that's like
Speaker 4: the sort of stuff that doctor Nathan Hall does at
Speaker 4: Texas Tech University.
Speaker 3: And doctor Hall is an associate professor of Companion Animal
Speaker 3: Science who has authored papers such as the influence of
Speaker 3: scented toy enrichment on owned dog activity levels in a
Speaker 3: household setting.
Speaker 4: I do think they have actually talked about needing to
Speaker 4: give the dogs like a break and letting memory calibrate
Speaker 4: because they're in this really like fine scale program versus yeah,
Speaker 4: what we do out in the woods. The dogs are
Speaker 4: basically always looking for everything we've trained them on. So,
Speaker 4: for example, both of my dogs are already trained to
Speaker 4: find osolot scat. Starting in January of this year, Barley
Speaker 4: is going to go work on an osalot project for
Speaker 4: his first time in like two years. So we're getting
Speaker 4: a fresh box of oslot poop in a couple of
Speaker 4: days here, because he hasn't actually trained with oslot for
Speaker 4: a couple of years. So I suspect if I just
Speaker 4: dropped him off on this project he would find some.
Speaker 4: But we're actually going to help him kind of refresh
Speaker 4: on it by practicing a bunch with that scent to
Speaker 4: kind of bring it back up to the top of mind.
Speaker 4: It's not like every day I have to put a
Speaker 4: wolf Scot sample out and be like, all right, buddy,
Speaker 4: you remember it's this like they've got.
Speaker 3: That, especially given that these deployments aren't necessarily about osalot
Speaker 3: ecology to them, they probably don't care at all. It's
Speaker 3: about smelling something cool, laying down with it between their paws,
Speaker 3: and getting to play with a toy like someone who
Speaker 3: is addicted to Dave Brewer, Lisa Gorman, Molly shot Well,
Speaker 3: Kyle Cunningham, Roads, and Metsicato want to know, in Dave
Speaker 3: Brewer's words, how long does it take to train a dog. Also,
Speaker 3: Molly shot Well wants you to know Scotty is so cute.
Speaker 4: Scotty is our rising star. He is so handsome. He's
Speaker 4: a little bloommeerl border Collie with like a split face,
Speaker 4: so half of it is dark and half of it
Speaker 4: is white. He's just adorable. He's perfect in every way.
Speaker 4: Scotty is like our He's our little prodigy. Scotty had
Speaker 4: a ton of previous training on him because he'd actually
Speaker 4: been through so he had failed out of a couple
Speaker 4: different jobs by the time we got him, so we
Speaker 4: already had a lot of transferable skills.
Speaker 3: Kayla told me a little bit more about Scotty while
Speaker 3: we were on the trail.
Speaker 4: One of our dogs, Scotty actually has been through three
Speaker 4: homes before us. And the crazy thing with him is
Speaker 4: he was actually he was in a sheep hurting home.
Speaker 4: He was in a competitive agility home mm hmm, and
Speaker 4: he just didn't like either of those sports. Oh, he
Speaker 4: just wasn't interested. He wasn't interested in the sheep And
Speaker 4: when they did agility, all he wanted to do was
Speaker 4: sniff and he just wanted to play ball. And we're
Speaker 4: like a dog that only wants to sniff and play ball.
Speaker 4: Sign him up.
Speaker 3: Was he in a shelter just with that kind of
Speaker 3: wrap sheet or did someone say, hey, I understand me.
Speaker 4: We posted a very cute hiring post on social media,
Speaker 4: and the person who had him at the time, who
Speaker 4: I believe was the agility a lady, reached out and said,
Speaker 4: you know, I think that this dog is going to
Speaker 4: be a lot happier with you guys than with me.
Speaker 4: So he actually skipped the shelter entirely, but probably would
Speaker 4: have ended up there eventually had he not gotten to
Speaker 4: just have a soft landing with us. And he's our
Speaker 4: little superstar. We loved him so much. Compare that to Niffler,
Speaker 4: who is my younger, younger dog. I got him when
Speaker 4: he was nine weeks old, and really even at nine months,
Speaker 4: like he wouldn't have been able to do anything that
Speaker 4: was any harder than a wind farm. So yeah, anywhere
Speaker 4: from a couple months to like maybe a couple of years.
Speaker 4: But part of that is also physiological, Like you're it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter how good your training is, You're not going
Speaker 4: to get a five month old dog to go to
Speaker 4: work because they're babies and they're right, they get tired easily,
Speaker 4: and they're distractable, and yeah they still are like barely
Speaker 4: potty trained at that age.
Speaker 3: You know. Well, in terms of other people's dogs, Doug Pace,
Speaker 3: Melissa Hart, Faith Novella, and Alicia Stelsel wanted to know
Speaker 3: can we train our own dogs to do this? Melissa
Speaker 3: Hert says can we train our own sweet doggies using
Speaker 3: the same technique? And faith Novella says, can there be
Speaker 3: a dog trained to sniff out turtles trying to save
Speaker 3: box turtles from lawnmowers over here? And would love to
Speaker 3: put my doggles to work?
Speaker 4: Yes? Yes, yes, yes. So there's a really cool paper
Speaker 4: from doctor Nicholas Rutter out of Australia. He did a
Speaker 4: ton of his PhD work about training volunteer conservation detection
Speaker 4: dog teams to do actual impactful conservation work. So yes
Speaker 4: you can. He did a great job creating a program
Speaker 4: and it worked quite well.
Speaker 3: Doctor Rutter has published recent papers such as can volunteers
Speaker 3: train their pet dogs to detect a novel odor in
Speaker 3: a controlled environment in under twelve weeks? And diving in
Speaker 3: knows First The influence of unfamiliar search scale and environmental
Speaker 3: context on the search performance of volunteer conservation to active
Speaker 3: dog handler teams.
Speaker 4: I will say it is a crap ton of work. So, like,
Speaker 4: this is not something where you're gonna go to a
Speaker 4: training class once a week for six months and then
Speaker 4: you're gonna like go do it necessarily maybe three times
Speaker 4: a week for six months and then yes, if this
Speaker 4: is something you're interested in, what you could start out
Speaker 4: with is like K nine nosework classes. Those are in
Speaker 4: most medium to large sized cities, Like I had an
Speaker 4: option for K nine nosework classes in Missoula, Montana, So
Speaker 4: it's not like you have to live in La to
Speaker 4: have an opportunity to do something like this that'll give
Speaker 4: you the basics of like teaching your dog how to
Speaker 4: read odor and working with your dog through olfactory stimuli
Speaker 4: potentially teaching your dog on alert behavior. It is pretty
Speaker 4: different from what we do though. It is kind of like,
Speaker 4: you know the difference between like gym class pickleball, and
Speaker 4: like Olympic tennis. You know, it's not you know, it
Speaker 4: like gets just started, but it's not really it. So
Speaker 4: if you're really really interested in, like you know, I
Speaker 4: forget who it was, but they wanted to do help
Speaker 4: with box turtles. There are people box tilder research already
Speaker 4: with conservation dogs quite effectively, but maybe not in your area.
Speaker 4: They probably do need more volunteers, They do need more help.
Speaker 4: Shameless plug. We have an online Conservation Dog handler course
Speaker 4: that teaches you about dog training, dog selection, wildlife interactions,
Speaker 4: oder dynamics, all of that sort of stuff. That would
Speaker 4: be a really good supplement to getting some hands on
Speaker 4: practice with something like a search and rescue group or
Speaker 4: that Canine knows work that I mentioned, so that you
Speaker 4: get kind of both sides of it. You get the
Speaker 4: hands on practice and the theory.
Speaker 3: So if you go to Canine Conservationists dot org you
Speaker 3: will find a whole ass tab for learn how to
Speaker 3: be a canine conservationist. They have online classes, they got
Speaker 3: virtual coaching, they have private coaching and training, they have seminars,
Speaker 3: they got a book club. So boom, there you go.
Speaker 3: Now this question is one of the most asked here
Speaker 3: we go. We had a lot of questions kind of
Speaker 3: from concerned listeners, Christian Nina Giocave, Ray sugar Puff, Daddy Kins,
Speaker 3: Jacob Shepherd, Share a Man's David Phillifranco and Hayley and
Speaker 3: I don't want this to be controversial, but they all
Speaker 3: kind of wanted to know. Do they know they're a
Speaker 3: good boy? Are they all good boys and girls? Who's
Speaker 3: a very good doggo? Are they all good dogs? Who
Speaker 3: are the goodest? Are they the goodest of good boys?
Speaker 3: Would it be possible to tell the dogs that we
Speaker 3: love them they're doing a good job? And also just
Speaker 3: one request, please just tell those doggos that they're good
Speaker 3: boys and girls and that we love them. Know for
Speaker 3: their questions, so, oh my god, is that a question?
Speaker 3: They get a lot.
Speaker 4: Well, first off, y'all are going to make me cry? Yeah, yes, no,
Speaker 4: they all know they're such good dogs. I tell them
Speaker 4: they're good ten thousand times a day. Occasionally I tell
Speaker 4: them they're bad, but like in a loving way, like
Speaker 4: you're such a bad dog.
Speaker 3: Why, oh you little bad dog?
Speaker 4: I love you so much, you're so bad. Niffler gets
Speaker 4: called stinky a lot, which is just like a progression
Speaker 4: of you know, Niffler to Sniffler to sniffs to sniffy
Speaker 4: to stinky. But yes, thank you, No, they are all
Speaker 4: very good dogs. Barley is probably both the best and
Speaker 4: the worst dog. He and I again are in this
Speaker 4: war of attrition of the litter box that I am
Speaker 4: losing for their records, so both very good and very bad.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of people who would just request
Speaker 3: you kiss them on the head. Actually someone did ask
Speaker 3: are they petible well working?
Speaker 4: Or how much is it? Like?
Speaker 3: No, do not, it's working right now? I know police
Speaker 3: dogs do not pet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, generally no, because you can't catch them. They're all
Speaker 4: fleesh and they are like out there. You know you're
Speaker 4: not gonna able to catch them all they're working. But no,
Speaker 4: like when we do demos, and like we do meet
Speaker 4: and greets afterwards, not all of our dogs, Not all
Speaker 4: of our dogs are like interested in meeting a bunch
Speaker 4: of strangers, but most of them are. Barley when we
Speaker 4: do demos, is pretty famous for like bringing his toy
Speaker 4: to a bunch of different members of the audience.
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 4: And yeah, Niffler will try to call inside your skin
Speaker 4: and we'll clean your ears for you. So yes, they
Speaker 4: are pattible as long as like you ask the handler
Speaker 4: permission first, because not all of them are interested in that.
Speaker 3: A few people wanted to know about career arcs macsernikra
Speaker 3: Young Cooper, Michael Emma, Henson, Ammani Politano, j Romspel, Christian
Speaker 3: love man alask Lauri Pemberton wanted to know, in Amani's words,
Speaker 3: where do they go when they retire, Like what's the
Speaker 3: career length for them?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so as far as when they retire, it depends
Speaker 4: kind of on their their bodies. I know conservation dogs
Speaker 4: who have worked up until about fourteen, and then some
Speaker 4: that retire younger if they've got some sort of catastrophic
Speaker 4: injury or a degenerative disease, so that can cause a
Speaker 4: career to be shortened. Generally they stay with their handlers.
Speaker 4: With police dogs, they are owned by the department in
Speaker 4: most cases, so they will kind of move them out
Speaker 4: so that there is space for that handler to then
Speaker 4: take on a new working dog. And kind of similarly
Speaker 4: with service dogs, sometimes it's helpful or kind of even
Speaker 4: necessary to move that other dog into a retirement home
Speaker 4: so that, you know, you can imagine someone who needs
Speaker 4: a service animal not have the time and the space
Speaker 4: and the capacity to care for an animal that is
Speaker 4: not helping with their life anymore, or sometimes it can
Speaker 4: be really hard for those dogs to continue watching the
Speaker 4: other dog get to work, so it can actually be
Speaker 4: really challenging for those dogs as well. It can be
Speaker 4: helpful for them to move on into a softer lending
Speaker 4: retirement home. My dogs aren't going anywhere.
Speaker 3: And Kayla notes that if say a dog works with
Speaker 3: them for six months and it's just not a good fit,
Speaker 3: it's not looking good, they might try to give that
Speaker 3: dog a career change and place it with another handler
Speaker 3: in a totally different job so that the dog is
Speaker 3: happier doing its own thing. Maybe the dog wants to
Speaker 3: go into graphic design or real estate. That's fine, speaking
Speaker 3: of job swapping. Last question from listeners Melissa Duoscin. First,
Speaker 3: some question asker, we kind of talked about this earlier.
Speaker 3: Since I'm a veterinarian with a strong interest in behavior
Speaker 3: and training, could I get into this line of work
Speaker 3: even if I am sadly not a scientist. Kili Shavs
Speaker 3: wants to know any job openings. Kate for some question
Speaker 3: asker says what jobs like this exist? Ourculent Church says,
Speaker 3: anyone else thinking why is this not my life? Payton
Speaker 3: Nell says this is a dream job I didn't know existed.
Speaker 3: How can people get into this kind of work?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we will be hiring in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 4: mostly seasonal, So if you're available for a summer and
Speaker 4: want to come hang out with us on either a
Speaker 4: wind farm or potentially doing some other projects. I'm going
Speaker 4: to be needing a tech in Alaska. I'll actually be
Speaker 4: needing three techs in Alaska. We'll have an opportunities tab
Speaker 4: up on our website when those positions are kind of
Speaker 4: ready and we know how much we're paying and what
Speaker 4: we're offering and all that sort of stuff. Otherwise, keep
Speaker 4: an eye on the Texas and m University Jobs Board.
Speaker 4: Sometimes there are Conservation Dog gigs posted there. They are
Speaker 4: few and far between and they are very competitive, but
Speaker 4: they are there. Then also you could consider joining the
Speaker 4: Conservation Dog Alliance. That's a really good place for peer
Speaker 4: to peer networking and mentoring, and we have skill shares
Speaker 4: every month and we all post jobs there all the time. So,
Speaker 4: especially if you're in other parts of the country or
Speaker 4: the world, you're not necessarily in the Pacific northwester or
Speaker 4: the Inner Mountain West, that would be a really good
Speaker 4: place to go and look because I've seen job postings
Speaker 4: shared in that group from the UK and India and
Speaker 4: all over the place. So that would be a good
Speaker 4: starting spot.
Speaker 3: Nice, Uh, worst thing about your job, something's got to
Speaker 3: suck other than the cat snickies, but anything to suck
Speaker 3: about it. I mean, I know there's also probably sad
Speaker 3: things that suck about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, yeah, we could go really sappy, which
Speaker 4: is just that the dogs don't live long enough. Barley
Speaker 4: is turning eleven soon and I am not okay with that.
Speaker 4: So that's really tough. And then you know, I've already
Speaker 4: hinted at this, but it is hard to maintain these dogs,
Speaker 4: and like we're not paid very much. The job is
Speaker 4: very like go go, go, go, go go go, and
Speaker 4: then like nothing but grant writing for a really long time,
Speaker 4: and you have to kind of be constantly on top
Speaker 4: of the dog's training and maintenance and physical therapy and fitness,
Speaker 4: and you know, sometimes I just wish I could catch
Speaker 4: a break as far as like the dog care. Like
Speaker 4: I'm constantly leaving happy hours and parties and whatnot early.
Speaker 4: You're turning down social events because I've got to go
Speaker 4: take care of the dogs. And that is dog ownership
Speaker 4: and I love it, but it, you know, sometimes it
Speaker 4: kind of sucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a part of it. It's you know what though,
Speaker 3: if you have friends that are like I got to
Speaker 3: piece out the dogs, your good friends are like, of course,
Speaker 3: you know your good ones are like it's part of you.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine if you're like, I'm gonna go check
Speaker 3: on my baby and people are like whatever, bitch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, nobody's mean about it. I'm just buckling.
Speaker 4: I left a party last night at eleven PM, and
Speaker 4: everyone else study out till two, and like, it would
Speaker 4: have been fun to stay out till too, drinking tequila
Speaker 4: and singing karaoke, but you know, I had to do
Speaker 4: physical therapy for my dog, which like, you know, not
Speaker 4: complaining too much, but a little bit.
Speaker 3: Once you get to be my she'll be like, ugh,
Speaker 3: how can I leave this party at ten thirty and
Speaker 3: go to bed? Yeah, I'm like, you left a party
Speaker 3: at eleven that's so late. So if you've been listening
Speaker 3: to Ologies for a long time, you might recall the
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen two part Somnology episode about how I went
Speaker 3: well over a decade so sleep deprived that I would
Speaker 3: sometimes sit down next to a pile of laundry and
Speaker 3: fall asleep in it. A more recent episode on burnout
Speaker 3: goes into way more detail on why that happened. So yeah,
Speaker 3: sleep is the best for me at least. What about
Speaker 3: for Kayla? What about the best thing?
Speaker 4: Oh, I mean obviously just the dogs, like the whole
Speaker 4: the whole thing, like getting to be out in the
Speaker 4: woods and seeing your dog making an amazing find and
Speaker 4: seeing that training build off, and especially honestly for me,
Speaker 4: it's the times where I see the dogs making a
Speaker 4: logical leap or like asking me a question through their
Speaker 4: behavior and then getting to be like, yes, yes, that's awesome,
Speaker 4: of course, let's go for it, you know, and just
Speaker 4: like that relationship is so cool, and actually getting to
Speaker 4: have a conservation impact and like working in these on
Speaker 4: these amazingly import imant and cool projects through the help
Speaker 4: of my dogs is just it's the best.
Speaker 3: Like really, you're really getting to work with your best friend,
Speaker 3: your best monds all the.
Speaker 4: Time, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not to mention, I hear, camping with a dog
Speaker 3: is nice because they are protective and also they're warm snuggles.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, although they are also sometimes wet. My whole
Speaker 4: life is just wet right now because of Fielder in
Speaker 4: Alaska and then now it's winter and Oregon.
Speaker 3: Well, it's so great to be able to see you
Speaker 3: out in the field and follow along, and I just
Speaker 3: think I'm so glad that this is an ology that
Speaker 3: is now fully coined and official, and that there'll be
Speaker 3: more of you in the future. What you're doing is
Speaker 3: so so cool and also so cute.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: So ask smart people, not smart questions, and hit the
Speaker 3: trail with a science dog, make sure you have water,
Speaker 3: or hit the trail with any dog and let them
Speaker 3: huff stuff in five mentions. They're having a blast. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much to Kayla the future doctor Frat and Barley,
Speaker 3: who she says she will thank in her dissertation acknowledgments
Speaker 3: and is pushing for him to be honored with a
Speaker 3: dog diurate. And you can find out more about her
Speaker 3: work and all of her colleagues and dogs via the
Speaker 3: website Canine Conservationist dot org and through their social handles
Speaker 3: at Canine Conservationists, which we're going to link the show notes.
Speaker 3: They also have their own Canine Conservationist podcast. We're going
Speaker 3: to link all that we are at ologies on Blue
Speaker 3: Sky and I'm still apparently on TikTok TikTok survives, I'm
Speaker 3: at Ali underscore Ologies, Instagram's are ologies and Ali Ward
Speaker 3: linked in the show notes. We do have shorter, kid
Speaker 3: friendly versions of ologies in their own podcast feed. They're
Speaker 3: called Smologies, available for free wherever you get podcasts. They
Speaker 3: have a new green logo s M O L O
Speaker 3: G I E. S. Thank you patrons at patroon dot
Speaker 3: com Sashologies for making the show possible. Aaron Talbert Adminciologies
Speaker 3: podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malick makes professional transcripts. Kelly R.
Speaker 3: Dwyer does the website. Susan Hale is our phenom of
Speaker 3: a managing director. Jake Chafey is a lovely editor and
Speaker 3: leading the post production wolf Pack is editor. Mercedes Maitland
Speaker 3: of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn wrote the Few music and
Speaker 3: if you stick around to the end, I tell you
Speaker 3: a secret. And this week it's that I have a
Speaker 3: new job. It's full time. It's in the tech industry,
Speaker 3: and my position involves increasing revenue through engagement. And the
Speaker 3: only downside is that there's no pay. It's just me
Speaker 3: all day refreshing apps in terror and I'm just driving
Speaker 3: revenue for other companies. I think a lot of you
Speaker 3: are my co workers refreshing apps, seeing what's going on
Speaker 3: while I'm still doing this job full time. So I'll
Speaker 3: see you guys in the breakdown room. Another news, if
Speaker 3: you are feeling bad at all, one thing that has
Speaker 3: earnestly helped me through some periods of darkness is finding
Speaker 3: a place to volunteer anywhere, maybe something you're into like
Speaker 3: a community garden program or reading to seniors, or mutual
Speaker 3: aid or organizing closed donations, or judging a local pie contest,
Speaker 3: or wearing a name tag at a museum, And just
Speaker 3: mostly most of your job there is just pointing people
Speaker 3: toward the restrooms when they ask I did that last one?
Speaker 3: It changed my life, definitely made me happier. And here
Speaker 3: we are. I made an episode about that and we'll
Speaker 3: link in the show notes. So heads up, you keep going.
Speaker 3: Life is a marathon. The course is determined mile by
Speaker 3: mile as you go. All right, bye, bye, pacadermatologyology, do zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, metatology, tethnology, zeriology, elinology.
Speaker 4: I will smell it, thank you later.
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