Before the 'hero koala' dog, rescue Maya paved the way

In the midst of the Black Summer, Bear, a five-year-old rescued koolie, was deployed to sniff out injured koalas in fire-ravaged areas. A member of the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Detection Dogs for Conservation team, Bear is trained to find both koalas and quolls in their natural habitat. Pictures of him doing exactly that promptly went viral. The protective-bootie-clad ‘hero koala dog’ was splashed across screens and front pages across Asia, Europe and the USA.

The tricky thing about studying koalas is that they are hard to find: they camouflage remarkably well against the grey-green leaves of their preferred eucalyptus trees. And their voracious appetites mean they move around a lot; adult koalas eat up to a kilogram of leaves every day, so they regularly change trees.

‘I started thinking that maybe there was another animal that could find these scats by relying on their nose. She contacted several professional dog trainers to discuss her idea. It’s something of an understatement to say none was particularly enthused.In 2012, through a mutual acquaintance, Romane happened to meet a dog trainer by the name of Gary ‘Gaz’ Jackson. She mentioned to him that she had once hoped to train a dog to detect koala scat, but the plan had been scuppered by dubious members of his own profession.

‘My understanding is that she was supposed to be put down on the day Gaz rescued her, but the vet nurse at the clinic didn’t want to put her down,’ she says. One thing Maya did want to do, however, was play ball. A large part of the reason Gaz had chosen her was that she was ball obsessed. That drive to play is vitally important for a detection dog – or any sort of working dog, really – because the promise of play is their motivation to work, with a few minutes of playtime their reward for a job well done.

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