Training “Boston” the Jack Russell for Nose Work

We’ve had some great feedback from this important initiative. Members of WIRES are now interested in training their dog to help find injured sick and orphaned wombats. This is wonderful news.

However It’s important to note that only licensed wildlife carers are eligible to apply for and be granted permission to undergo training nose works for the benefit of our precious native animals

I am a licensed wildlife carer who is often called to the side of the road to save injured, sick or orphaned wombats. Many times we see a dead wombat on the side of the road and if one looks closely the victim could be a mum with a baby in the pouch. Sometimes mums have an elongated teat (which indicates a joey) and the baby is missing. This could mean that a rescuer has already retrieved the baby or that there is a baby close by or back in the burrow. These babies need to be saved as soon as possible. Caring public often call us and report a baby wombat next to or lying on top of their dead mum. These babies can run away but are still dependent on mum for their survival so the quicker we find them and bring them to care the better off they’ll be. These babies need warmth, nutrition milk and comfort.

We can spend hours or even days looking for the orphaned baby wombat and even if we do rescue the foundling they are often so weak they can barely move away from mum. Before the babies weaken, they are very hard to track and catch. These babies can suffer from broken bones, they can end up with a parasite infestation from sheep, cattle and goats. Their immunity fails them without their mum and they’re very vulnerable.

You can imagine the chances are very few for us to find them in the scrub, so we are very hopeful about our tracking dog.

Sometimes too if the orphan is in reasonable health they’ll go to another wombat and insist that wombat be their protector. This intimidates the other wombat and they attack and reject the orphan, so the little orphan is truly on their own. Also callers report an adult wombat who might be hit by a car and injured. Other victims have disease and been cited by landowners or drivers so a wombat tracking dog will make life much easier because we can find the wombat or their burrow.

When tracking, I intend to keep this wombat tracking dog on a very long lead and expect great success from this exercise. My colleagues are very excited about it and I’m very grateful to Camelina from “ For Paws Sake “ to be so flexible to allow us to have this opportunity to serve and protect our beloved wombats.

Image above is of a wombat suffering from mange which is a deadly disease introduced by European settlers and if afflicted the wombats suffer a slow and painful death.

This is another example of how our tracking dog can help find suffering wombat’s who need medical treatment