In addition to their odor - tracking abilities , specially trained dogs help conversation efforts by enable researchers to study animals in more non - direct ways .

Somewhere in the wilds of Malaysia , Rita Santos and her dog Hera are walk through knee joint high sess . The domain they ’re working in is a live home ground for tigers and other bounteous cat , which mean that it ’s also a popular hunt grounds for the poachers who track them . That ’s why , on this day under the beating Malayan sun , Santos and Hera are bet for poop .

For decades , animal preservation studies trust almost exclusively on physically locating the species in query . Most of the time , this was accomplished by attracting an animate being to a particular area to trance specimen through alive caparison , or by recording their presence indirectly via television camera maw and tracking station . It was a dull , tedious unconscious process that was not always guaranteed success .

But in more recent X , dogs like Hera have become more and more valuable putz in conservation attempt because of their ability to track various targets through scent and enable groups to study animals in more non - lineal ways .

" To serve monitor species , " Santos says . " To serve elusive animals , she find invasive species , [ but ] her main job is to come up nincompoop . "

An animal ’s scat singing can provide incredibly valuable information to preservation groups regarding the overall health of the fauna they study . One scat singing sampling can provide information regarding an fauna ’s diet , genetics and hormone levels , as well data such as identifying the presence of leech or biological abnormalities . And , significantly , it can grant scientist to gather this information without any verbatim middleman with the animal itself .

Hera was born to a stray bedding material in the officious streets of Lisbon . Taken in by a shelter as a pup , she was adopted by a family line at six month honest-to-god , but was give up back to the shelter when her energy levels proved to be more than the adopting family could handle . That ’s where she would continue for another class , untilSantos take on the then - two class old hotdog in 2017 . Santos , by then an experient conservation Canis familiaris handler working with a dog named Zeus , was looking for a new dog to train for the occupation , and she thought that Hera ’s large energy levels would come in ready to hand in the champaign .

" We tested her and she did awesome , " Santos says . " She came into my life to be a supernumerary hot dog , because it ’s secure to have two dogs so one does n’t get all the work [ and ] she terminate up doing the whole undertaking herself .

That joy has ask Santos and Hera to seven unlike country , aid in animal preservation effort for a startling range of brute . Trained in the identification of 17 dissimilar fair game , Hera and Santos have helped track down brown bears , several coinage of wolf , ocean turtle nests , even grasshoppers and lizard .

" Once I was capable to get Hera , we started to work full time , " Santos say . " We go from project to externalize , so it ’s kind of a modus vivendi , rather of a job , "

In gain to doing significant , scientifically valuable work together , Santos credit her relationship with Hera for making her a more well - rounded person . promise herself " a very anxious mortal " by nature , Santos say that Hera provides a calming influence when they are n’t exploit in the orbit , giving Santos a feeling of quilt in their downtime . That connexion is of vital importance , because howsmart a dogis or how much it can smell is only part of the par when it comes to bring in conservation . Every bit as important , is therelationship between dog and handlerand how well the two can work as one .

" She is the center of my humankind justly now , " Santos says . " I intend I ’m a better someone in general , just because I ’m around dogs . "