Season 6 Episode 5: Striped Fish, Men and Dogs, and Sniffing out Science with Kayla Fratt

Leap into a world where science meets companionship, and the wag of a tail leads to a conservation revolution. Join us as we marvel at the astonishing Striped Marlin, whose high-speed chases and vivid color changes captivate our imaginations. Then, we pivot to our terrestrial friends, revealing how studies show a man's four-legged companion might just influence women's perceptions more than a snazzy profile. Our expert guest, PhD candidate Kayla Fratt, enriches our discussion with her profound insights on canine behaviors and their intersection with human psychology.

In the heart of our episode, we trek into the wilderness with the co-founder of Canine Conservationists, unraveling their story from a nature-filled childhood to training dogs that sniff out wildlife scat for science. These canine heroes, many rescued from shelters, are not just pets but partners in preserving our planet's diverse tapestry of life. Their exceptional olfactory skills are not just fascinating—they're essential to collecting data that paints a clearer picture of our natural world, all without disturbing a single leaf.

And for those who cherish the cold nose and warm heart of a pet during the winter's frost, we share personal anecdotes that bring laughter and a shared sense of the joy and challenges our furry family members present.

So, bundle up and tune in for an episode that promises to be as heartwarming as it is enlightening!

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:08

Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zikowski. I'm a high school chemistry teacher and a science communicator, but I'm also the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker, the science dogs on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right place. Put on your lab coat, put on your safety glasses and hold onto your tail. This is the Science Podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode five of season six.

Speaker 2: 0:40

This podcast is going to be coming out on a leap day of the leap year. That's right, february 29th. Ooh, spooky, but not really. I don't know if you're supposed to celebrate anything different on February 29th. I know there are a lot of kids who are getting their real birthday. There's a bunch of leap babies. It's probably really exciting to have your birthday birthday on February 29th. I digress, let's figure out what's happening on the podcast this week.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Well, in science news we're going to be looking at Striped Marlin who change colors what? Yeah, I know that's pretty cool. And in pet science it's a little bit of both science and pets and psychology. There's a really cool study that looked at how women perceive men in photos if they have a dog and if they don't have a dog and I had talked to Chris about it and she kind of like backed up what the study said. So that's going to be kind of interesting to break it down. Our guest and ask an expert is PhD candidate Kayla Fret. What she does and what she studies is so very cool. I won't spoil it, but it's all about dogs. Okay, the bad joke Never, ever try to talk to a fish before it's calf fin aided, terrible. Okay, one more quick one which fish has the worst haircut? Well, the mullet. Okay, on with the show, because there's no time like science time.

Speaker 2: 2:14

This week in science news we're going to the ocean. I saw a scientist actually tweet this out four or five days ago and it was. It caught my interest. I was like, oh, this would be cool to kind of break down on the podcast. And the fish we're going to be looking at is the striped Marlin. This is a different Marlin from Marlin of Finding Nemo. Marlin of in Finding Nemo, of course, is a clownfish.

Speaker 2: 2:41

The striped Marlin are among the fastest animals on earth and they are really top predators in the ocean. They have that really long protruding nose and they're built for speed. They're really cool, shimmering colors and they're quite large. I always forget how big ocean fish get. I didn't grow up around the ocean, I grew up around lakes and the fish you would catch from the lake, you know, would be, if you were lucky, half the size of your arm. So when I say Marlin are pretty big, they're really big. They can grow to be between 11 and 14 feet long and they could weigh between 200 and 400 pounds. The Atlantic blue Marlin can grow up to 16 feet long and weigh up to 1800 pounds. And remember I remember I said they're really fast. Okay, to put that into perspective, they can swim up to speeds of 60 miles per hour. That's a highway car ripping down the highway. Pretty remarkable creatures. But it gets better.

Speaker 2: 3:55

And the study starts off by looking at how they hunt. So when Marlin are hunting in groups, individual Marlins take turns attacking schools of prey fish, and there is a whole host of other prey fish that they could go after. Sardines are among their favorite. Now, swirling swarm of prey fish, plus how fast the Marlins move, has always puzzled scientists, because the Marlin don't impale each other, they don't injure each other in their attack on their prey. And this new study from current biology explains that the reason why they don't hurt each other is they rapidly change color. So how are you going to study Marlin in the ocean like are going to scuba dive beside them? Probably not the smartest, but what they did do was they send out some drones to monitor the Marlin movements and hunting behavior. The video footage captured by a drone showed that the stripes on individual Marlins got brighter as the fish moved in for an attack, so it was like a warning signal to their friends I'm going for it. And then the stripes got dimmer as they swam away.

Speaker 2: 5:12

This study analyzed 12 high resolution video clips of attacks on schools of fish. They were Sardines by two different Marlins and they confirmed the rapid color changing during attacks, meaning that every time the Marlins went in for the attack, their stripes got brighter. This color change in predators is super rare, and even more rare in group hunting predators. It's a really cool discovery and it might suggest that Marlins have a very complicated communication channel that serves a dual purpose, like they could confuse their prey with their color change, but also let their friends know to get out of the way of their pointy, pointy face. The team that put the study together, are really excited to look at if Marlins use this color changing ability in other contexts, like if they're hunting by themselves. If they're hunting by themselves, do they need to flash their stripes and dim their stripes as they go on the attack and as they retreat?

Speaker 2: 6:16

Now, marlin are maybe not the only fish that hunts that changes color. There are two other fish that change color when they hunt, or at least those color changes have been observed, and more study needs to be done. That's the sail fish and the mahi mahi. I just thought this was so wild, like it's not something that you would think would occur. I guess I live really far away from the ocean, so I'm more terrestrial than I am aquatic. I just think it's so wild that, in order to warn their friends, so they don't get impaled or poked or whatever, their stripes actually flash a brighter color. I think that's so interesting. I'm also, like you know, I'm very curious and perplexed and it fills me with wonder, like what is the biological mechanism? How do you change the color of your stripes? Isn't that really neat to think about? Anyways, that's science news for this week. This week in pet science, as I mentioned in the lead, our story is a mix of science with animals and also, like science, with people, psychology and sociology.

Speaker 2: 7:23

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of including a dog in photos that depict really threatening scenarios on how women react to it, but also how this effect varies in societies with perhaps different safety levels. So they took undergraduate women from societies with quote unquote lower safety value Columbia and higher safety values Spain. So in metrics on what would you consider to be safe or how safe you feel, columbia scored quite a bit lower than Spain. And then they rated the emotional content of images showing a man alone with a dog in a threatening scenario, as well as images of like things that were happy or very neutral scenes. One really surprising result from the study is that when they showed women the man with the dog in a threatening scenario as opposed to things that were maybe neutral or pleasant, they rated the man as being less safe, less calm and more dominant compared to neutral scenes or the more pleasant scenes. So women in both the society that would be considered less safe and the society that would be considered more safe were kind of on the same page with the man with the dog. But then the researchers took the dog away and they had just a man in the threatening scenario and when compared to the man alone versus the man with the dog, the man alone was way worse for being dominant and having extremely low safety and they felt he wasn't calm and from that it wasn't the dog's fault how the women felt about looking at the photo, it was actually the man. The man was the lowest common denominator for how the women felt safe about the photo.

Speaker 2: 9:35

This study indicates that having a dog around reduced the negative emotional reactions to these threatening social scenes and it was across the board in this society that was considered lower safety and higher safety. When women were asked you know why, why did you feel this way about the man? One of the common responses was there could be a hypothetical attack. The man in this image could just attack me, and the dog in that instance didn't necessarily keep those feelings from being felt by the women. It's a short little study, but when I asked Chris how she felt about it she said it's bang on. Just because a man has a dog doesn't necessarily make her feel super comfortable if the scenario that they're in is something that's kind of sketchy and especially if she's like by herself. But she said a man with a dog compared to a man without a dog. No contest, the man with the dog definitely feels safer to her than the man without the dog.

Speaker 2: 10:46

What do you think? I'd love to know a comment on this, like on good pods, in the comment section. Well, that's pet science for this week. Hello everybody, here's some ways you can keep the science podcast free. Number one in our show notes sign up to be a member of our pop hack plus community.

Speaker 2: 11:06

It's an amazing community of folks who love pets and folks who love science. We have tons of bonus Bunsen and beaker content there and we have live streams every Sunday with our community. It's tons of fun. Also, think about checking out our merch store. We've got the Bunsen stuffy, the beaker stuffy and now the ginger stuffy. That's right, ginger the science cat has a little replica. It's adorable. It's so soft, with the giant fluffy tail, safety glasses and a lab coat. And number three, if you're listening to the podcast on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating and tell your family and friends to listen to. Okay, on with the show. Back to the interviews. It's time for ask an expert on the science podcast. And I have Kayla fret with me today, who's the co-founder of canine conservationists. Kayla, how are you doing?

Speaker 3: 11:59

Hey, I'm doing great. I'm super excited to be here with you.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Yeah, me too. By quite by random, quite by random happen chance, I saw a tweet of yours. I was like, oh man, we got to talk to Kayla. Where are you in the world? Where are you calling into the show from?

Speaker 3: 12:15

I'm calling in from Drury Corvallis, Oregon, where I am a PhD student right now.

Speaker 2: 12:20

Okay. Have you had to ping pong around the world for school and stuff like that, or is Oregon your home?

Speaker 3: 12:27

Oh no, I grew up in Wisconsin. I went to undergrad in Colorado, lived in Montana for a while. I've worked in Nebraska, guatemala, kenya. We're all over the place. We're very nomadic.

Speaker 2: 12:37

You're nomadic, OK, which is kind of. I mean, you did mention you're a PhD candidate. It kind of is par for the course getting through academia. But that's my next question. You mentioned you're a PhD candidate. What's your training in science so far?

Speaker 3: 12:51

Yeah, so I've got a undergrad degree in ecology and then I have been working as a field technician and conservation detection dog trainer more or less ever since graduating undergrad in 2016. So now I'm jumping straight into the deep end with a PhD. I skipped the masters for some reason.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Oh nice, ok. So when you were young, kayla, I always, like you know, I always like asking people who are going through science this question Were you a science kid? Were you a dog kid? Were you both growing up?

Speaker 3: 13:23

I was 1,000% a science kid and, yeah, definitely also a dog kid, but we didn't get our first dog until I was a little older, so it was kind of more admiring from afar with dogs. But I'll try to be somewhat brief. My dad is a conservation biologist and we grew up on 40 acres in rural northern Wisconsin. That like as a kid my dad was constantly writing conservation grants to rewild the property and we were constantly like transplanting trees from one area to the other to reforest parts of the property and yeah, so I just grew up like really, really embedded in the conservation world and when I was underfoot over summer break or whatever, my dad would send me out with a data sheet being like go find all the Red Wing Blackbird desks and tell me how many eggs they have and whether or not they've hatched, and I would then spend like three weeks basically doing community science as like an eight-year-old and I think that was science was like my babysitter as a little kid.

Speaker 2: 14:22

Oh my goodness, that is so cool.

Speaker 3: 14:25

It was amazing, yeah, so nobody's surprised that I've ended up here.

Speaker 2: 14:30

It wasn't like you woke up when you were 17 and you're like hmm, maybe science today.

Speaker 3: 14:34

No, no, every single step I've taken in my entire life has made sense for where I am now, even the steps that at the time didn't make sense, which we can get into a little bit more. But I've had some diversions into thinking that I wanted to be a translator or that I more wanted to be like an adventure guide, and all of those like language and outdoor adventure skills have really come back to help me even more with the conservation and wildlife goals than I thought at the time.

Speaker 2: 15:01

That is awesome, ok, very cool. So the big question and the reason why we had you and what piqued my interest. From Axe or Twitter, whatever it's called now, I saw you were posting about dogs doing conservation work and that's my big question. You are the co-founder of this amazing program, this amazing thing called Canine Conservationists. What is it?

Speaker 3: 15:27

Yeah, so I have the world's coolest job, in my not so humble opinion. So I get to train detection dogs. So dogs that in a lot of ways are similar to like bomb dogs, drug dogs, search and rescue dogs but instead of finding stuff that bad guys are trying to hide from us or missing people, we are finding samples that biologists need to do their research. So in practice, most of that means poop. My dogs and I are professional poop finders. Sometimes it can be something more like an invasive plant or a muscle or something like that. And then, with Canine Conservationists, I've got two lovely co-founders. Between the three of us we've got five detection dogs and we work on projects all around the world helping people with their conservation goals and their research goals. We also run an online school and mentorship program to help more people and their dogs get involved in this line of work.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Oh, amazing. So they detect poop. Yes, what's the purpose? What is it Like? What's their? I guess I'm kind of fumbling around, but the main question is like what's their purpose? Why do you need them right?

Speaker 3: 16:39

Right, yeah. So to start with, like, why would you want poop, which I don't think is exactly what you're asking, but I'm sure someone is asking that in the audience. With poop from an animal, we can figure out what the animal has been eating, we can figure out its sex, we can figure out in some cases like stress hormones or parasite loads, so we can answer all sorts of questions about how many animals are on the landscape and how they're using that landscape, all by just finding their poops. So we don't necessarily have to set out traps and then catch these animals and put GPS collars on them and all these things that are really expensive and take a lot of time and can also be stressful for the animal. So we can do all of that through poop.

Speaker 3: 17:17

But for the dogs, the reason that the dogs are helpful is sometimes, if you imagine, kind of looking out, standing on a ridgeline over pick, your favorite national park, and you're just looking at you know, wilderness as far as the eye can see.

Speaker 3: 17:31

And now I tell you OK, I want you to go out and find every single pile of Puma scat in that area. That's a big challenge and basically what our dogs can do is they work alongside human searchers, so I am out there when I'm with my dogs, using my eyes, using the senses that I have as a human, which are mostly my eyes and my big brain, to help find scat, while the dogs are using their noses. And the really cool thing about olfaction is that when you imagine a pile of poop on the landscape, I as a person need that poop to be visible, so it needs to not be buried under leaf litter. It ideally needs to be close enough to the path that I am able to see it really, really easily. And in a lot of dense vegetation or tall grass, that might mean that it basically has to be underfoot for me to be able to see it.

Speaker 3: 18:21

You got to step in it, basically, yeah basically got to step in it Versus our dogs. If you imagine, you know we've all been there, we've walked past, you know our neighbor's barbecue and we can tell that they're barbecuing from a block away. Now imagine your dog, whose sense of smell is I always forget, but it's hundreds of times better than ours. They sometimes will be able to smell that there is a dead bat or a pile of poop from over 100 meters away. So I can be walking on a path, the path of least resistance, through the forest, using my eyes to search, while the dogs are actually, by the way that odor moves, they're searching like 100 meters in every direction, at all points, while we're searching and actually I shouldn't have said every direction in the direction that the wind is coming from, because they are limited by the direction of the wind. So I hope that wasn't too long of an answer, but that's basically where the dogs come in handy.

Speaker 2: 19:12

And like, how accurate are they? Like, do they find stuff that there's no human ever would with our technology? Is that the idea?

Speaker 3: 19:24

Yeah, so you know, how accurate they are depends a lot on the dog.

Speaker 3: 19:28

This is definitely a job that not every dog in the world wants to have and is going to be successful at which is true for most careers out there, for humans as well and it's a product of how well trained that dog is, how well prepared the dog is. But generally, yes, they can find things that humans were never ever going to find, and they also can, if they're well-trained, be much faster and more specific. So one of the things that can be tricky with some of our scat samples in particular is that they basically look the same like Coyote and bobcat poop really look incredibly similar. So if you've got a dog that you have successfully trained to just find one of those species, then you're less likely to be picking up the samples from a species that you don't want, which is important because every time you run that sample through genetic testing to actually answer the questions that scientists are trying to answer, that costs money. So if you're picking up dozens and dozens of Coyote samples when you're trying to find bobcat samples, that can be a really expensive mistake.

Speaker 2: 20:32

What are some of the animals that you use that the dogs are tracking, like what are? Just give us a few, I guess I'm curious.

Speaker 3: 20:39

Yeah, so the biggest work that we have done kind of our bread and butter is actually working on wind farms finding bird and bat carcasses, so the birds and bats that have been hit by the wind turbines and then fall to the earth. And then we're taking part in studies where they're trying to investigate different ways to mitigate those fatalities, so if it's turning the turbines off during peak migration, those sorts of things. We also have worked on Puma, jaguar, ocelot and a lot of other kind of neotropical carnivores, so wild carnivores in like Central America that people may or may not be familiar with. And then, yeah, my dogs and I are about to go head up to Alaska to find Wolfscat, so kind of all over the place it's a lot of carnivore scat because that's where the money is and that's where a lot of research comes in. But then also those bird and bat carcasses are kind of our two big categories right now.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Do you get the call when the biologists in the field have hit a wall Like they're banging their head against and they're like, ah, and then they're like, well, I would imagine I mean like this is amazing and everybody should know about it. But my guess is the average field biologist is this not their first thing to go to? Maybe?

Speaker 3: 21:52

No, you're totally right. We definitely do occasionally get calls from biologists who have no about conservation dogs and they know before they've even started their study that they think they want the dogs involved. That happens. But so, like this wind farm project that we're about to start, that is where that came about, Because there's just a ton of research in the wind farm world that human searchers are consistently beaten by dog searchers.

Speaker 3: 22:18

So they just started right out with the dogs. But yeah, a lot of times we do kind of get contacted when researchers have already tried other things and generally when those other methods aren't working. So then we get to go into problem solving mode with them thinking about OK, what have you tried already? What are you hoping to work on and improve by the use of the dogs? And then we sometimes have to have a conversation about whether or not the dogs are actually likely to meet those goals or if there's something else going on in their study design or in their study area that maybe dogs aren't actually going to be the savior for their research. Most of the times they can help, but we do have to be honest about the fact that dogs don't actually solve every single problem.

Speaker 2: 23:02

Well, except from having dogs on site, because they're dogs and they're awesome.

Speaker 3: 23:06

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 23:06

Yeah, and that's honestly.

Speaker 3: 23:08

Yes, yes, exactly and honestly sometimes. I don't think this is ever the entire reason we get called, but sometimes, when researchers are trying to drum up interest and enthusiasm for a problem, getting conservation dogs on the case can be a really good way to attract media attention and get the public really excited Again. I don't think that's ever the only reason that we get called, but it definitely is a benefit.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Well, dogs are pretty charismatic. Yes, Not saying you aren't, Kayla, but you know. People know Bunsen and Beaker way more than they know me.

Speaker 3: 23:45

Exactly, yeah, my dogs are way more charismatic and way more handsome than I am, and the cameras are always pointed in their faces, not mine, which is great for me. I prefer it that way.

Speaker 2: 23:57

So on. I guess my next question is you mentioned that it's not a job for every dog and their success is based on their training. So how does that work? How do you select the dog and or train it for something like this?

Speaker 3: 24:13

Yeah. So you know, at the most basic and I do feel like it's important to mention this, even though it feels kind of obvious once I've said it we start out with a dog that is going to be physically well suited to this job. So that means we're generally not looking at like wiener dogs that have really short legs and a long back and they're going to get very tired in the field very quickly. We're generally looking for dogs that are kind of the right size so that they can easily cover miles and miles in a given day, but also small enough that we could carry them out if there was an injury in the field.

Speaker 2: 24:44

Oh, so you don't want a great dane or something like that.

Speaker 3: 24:47

Yeah, exactly, and I no one here can see me, but I'm five foot two. I'm a pretty small woman. So part of the reason my two dogs are border collies instead of German shepherds or big Labrador is that I feel much more confident saying that I will be able to carry my 45 pound border collies out of the woods than like a 90 pound Labrador or German shepherd. So that's kind of what we start.

Speaker 2: 25:11

We're a hundred and some pound Bunsen.

Speaker 3: 25:14

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like you know, I'd rather not need to bring like an extra field technician and litter with me in the field on the off chance that Bunsen gets hurt, because we do sometimes end up many, many miles away from our field vehicle in snake country or bear country or you know, the dog could just slip and break a paw. You know we've never had anything like that happen, but it is really important to us to make sure that if anything were to happen, we're really confident we can get the dog out into safety quickly.

Speaker 2: 25:45

Your dogs are not just tools, they're living creatures, right.

Speaker 3: 25:48

Exactly, they sleep in my bed. They take over my bed.

Speaker 3: 25:51

You know they're my family members.

Speaker 3: 25:54

So then the next thing that we're looking for is dogs that are generally over the top nuts for toys, so the sorts of dogs that the second you go outside they grab a stick and then they're like chasing you around with a stick, being like throw it, throw it, throw it, throw it.

Speaker 3: 26:09

That's what we're looking for, because then what we can do in the training is we teach the dog hey, if you find this thing that I'm looking for and you play this silly game with me every time you find it, I will throw your favorite toy for you and we will play your favorite game.

Speaker 3: 26:22

So the whole thing to the dogs is just this big old game of hide and seek, or almost like hide and seek tag. They absolutely love it, but it's really important to find dogs that are so obsessed with their favorite game that they will continue to play that game for eight hours a day, every day for weeks on end, even when there are squirrels, or it's raining, or it's hot or a buddy has just flushed out from under them. We need dogs that are just kind of at that super duper high level of focus and obsession. So generally our dogs come from the shelter, because these sorts of dogs don't tend to make great pets. They tend to be very difficult to live with and are kind of a full time job to manage energy level and behavior wise.

Speaker 2: 27:08

So you funnel their something that maybe had them given up to this job Exactly. Yeah, it's cool. It makes me so sad there's such good dogs.

Speaker 3: 27:22

Yeah, yeah, and you know, and I say it all the time, like whenever I got a town and I come back and get my dogs back from the dog sitter, most of my dog sitters are saying gosh, I love your dogs, they're so nice and I don't know how you do it. How do you? You know, like I do, basically year round, I have to be taking them out for runs and training them every single day or they will stage a coup.

Speaker 2: 27:48

So most of the dogs from the working breed. Like you mentioned, the water collies right.

Speaker 3: 27:53

Yeah, so most of the breeds that we see in this line of work are, you know, in the Labrador Shepard Collie healers are pretty common. Spaniels are very popular as well. So Springer and Cocker spaniels we're kind of looking at the, the herding breeds broadly, or the pointing, flushing, retrieving breeds. So yeah, those like hunting dogs.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Right, I misspoke. I meant yeah, working with the emphasis on herding, just because their focus is like so laser on that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3: 28:25

Yeah, exactly. And you know, then, when we think about our hunting, pointing, retrieving dogs, those dogs also tend to absolutely love being out in the woods searching for stuff. The tricky thing there is convincing them again that we're not looking for birds but we're looking for a scat or whatever. So a lot of times we'll get like a flunky bird dog who totally sucked at hunting but because he had no interest in birds, but then we can get him onto scat instead.

Speaker 2: 28:52

Oh, that's lucky. Beaker hates birds. She's a golden retriever, absolutely hates birds and wants to kill them all. So that's what I somewhere that's along her line in the past they were like hunting dogs for birds guaranteed. Yeah, yep, not would not be helpful for you at all. No, and then, once it gets hot Bunsen, be like nah, I'm just going to go lay in the shade. You humans go do human stuff Like what are you guys even doing out here?

Speaker 3: 29:21

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 29:22

No, that's a great example of what we say is it's probably about one in a thousand dogs actually really wants to do this line of work, and your odds get better and better the more you kind of cut down by.

Speaker 3: 29:33

Okay, if we only look at dogs that are physically suited and then we only look at dogs that have that high level of toy, play, drive or whatever, then we're starting to look at maybe like one in 10 is going to make it through training and it also kind of, to be honest, depends on the skill of the trainer as well, because some of us are better at modifying our training plans and going at the pace of the dog and getting creative when we hit a wall, and then others are more kind of focused on no, this is the curriculum, and if the dog doesn't keep up, then the dog can go find a different job elsewhere. And I don't necessarily mean to judge either way, because most of those organizations that do have more of the strict curriculum they do an incredible job of then getting those dogs placed into a job that is going to be a better fit for that dog, whether it's being a pet dog or maybe being a different sort of working dog.

Speaker 2: 30:24

Well, and that's a great point you made, because we've interviewed folks who have service animals or like animals for XYZ and it is like there is like a tiny fraction of dogs make the cut.

Speaker 4: 30:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:39

Like you can have. Like Beaker is super friendly as a golden retriever, she loves everybody is not focused enough to help out. If somebody was having trouble, she'd be like oh no, you fell over, I love you. Okay, can. I lick your face. Oh, there's a bird. Bye, you know like. Oh, thanks, beaker, for helping me over here.

Speaker 3: 31:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly and, honestly, one of the things I've been surprised by.

Speaker 3: 31:05

So I've mostly worked, as I said, with the shelter dogs, so I'm acquiring these dogs when they're maybe two or three years old in the shelter. And my recent, my most recent dog, my younger dog Nifflr, is three years old and I got him from a breeder because I got him during COVID and I kept trying to apply to adopt these dogs. But if we all remember, kind of during peak COVID in 2020, all of the dogs were like flying off the shelves at the shelters, so I couldn't get another working dog from a shelter. So I went with the breeder and I have been shocked how long it has taken him to grow up into this line of work. He was successfully working when he was nine months old, but on very specific projects, and it has taken, even though he was succeeding at nine months old. Now, at three years old, he's finally getting ready to go do some of those harder projects and it was really surprising to me how long that took to kind of get through teenagerhood.

Speaker 2: 31:59

Wow, hmm, yeah, beaker is going to be a teenager, I think, for the rest of her life, by the way.

Speaker 3: 32:06

Yeah, yeah, that's. I was starting to worry that about Nifflr. I was just like I think I've got a Benjamin Button dog. I don't know if he's ever going to grow up.

Speaker 2: 32:16

Yeah, okay, well, my, my next question is we? I think we've touched on a lot about what they do and what they are Is there? Is there some misconceptions or other things you'd like the public to know about the canine conservationists?

Speaker 3: 32:30

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that is really important for us to get out is that these dogs are trained professionals and Even if you, you know, listen to our podcast or go through our course, this isn't something that we encourage people to just go out and start trying to do on their own, interacting with wildlife and wild spaces in particular. So these dogs go through really, really rigorous Selection and training to make sure that they're never going to harass wildlife. Sometimes I think people think of dogs that maybe they're going to be retrieving the animal or Chasing the animal and putting it up a tree or something like that, and those are working dog Jobs that exist, but that is generally not what we're doing. We work very, very hard to make sure that our study animals don't ever have any reason to be worried about our dogs. Obviously, they will smell our dogs and to know that they have moved through their territory, but we try really hard to make sure that that's just not an impact for them, because our dogs get special permission to go into wildlife Management areas or national parks and all sorts of areas and come into contact with wild animals that most dogs Just really never should, and we take that very, very seriously that our dogs are never going to like Chase a super endangered rabbit. Or actually we have a cool story, if I can share.

Speaker 3: 33:51

When we were doing Jaguar and other carnivore monitoring in Guatemala, we had a situation where a niffler, my younger dog, had just found a scat, so he had sniffed it out and then laid down which is how he tells me that he's got something. And I came over and I checked and it was a. It was a gray-fax Scat, we believe, and I said goodbye and I threw his ball and as myself and all of the field Technicians looked up to watch the ball and watch niffler go chase it down, someone says Jaguar, and I had basically thrown the ball at a Jaguar. Oh no, niffler, blesses soul, didn't even see it again.

Speaker 3: 34:29

He's so focused on the ball he didn't even notice the Jaguar. He got his ball, he came back and I, you know I was like okay, we're gonna play tug of war now instead I'm gonna, and I like put my hand on his collar and kept rewarding him with the, with the toy, through tug of war, and we kind of watched the Jaguar. It took a glance at us and it disappeared. The whole interaction lasted like 30 seconds, but those are the sorts of situations that you need your dog to be really prepared for before this. So again, it's the coolest job in the world and we really want more people getting involved, but it also is a very, very high bar to be prepared for those sorts of things.

Speaker 2: 35:03

Yeah, the week. Yeah, you want recall, immediate recall on your dog. Either do, because they love what that the game or they're just. You know that the training there is solid.

Speaker 3: 35:15

Yeah, ideally both, and you know, we, you know, at risk of going down more rabbit holes. This is my, my weakness, and all sorts of other training as well. We've had situations where I've realized that there was a rattlesnake between me and my dog. So I don't want my dog to come back to me because there's a rattlesnake in the way. So then I have to tell him to lie down and even though they're a hundred meters away from me, they listen to me and they just drop to the ground and then I can move around the snake and Collect the dog and kind of move on into into the wilderness together.

Speaker 2: 35:44

Yeah, wow, a bunsome would do. Okay, he's, he's, he's got pretty good Recall, except like if you found a moose leg or something like that, as people would say.

Speaker 3: 35:55

Yeah, yeah, well, those are tempting.

Speaker 2: 35:57

Those are, that's as Achilles heel. Um. So, with your PhD that you're working on, is this that, like all of this dog stuff related to what you're hoping to To finish your PhD with?

Speaker 3: 36:11

yeah, yeah. So I plan on staying in the conservation dog world forever. You know I I just can't imagine myself finding a reason to leave this field. I love everything about it, even the parts that kind of suck, like I'm, you know, redoing my CV today and, you know, writing grant proposals and those sorts of things. I actually enjoy that variety. But for my PhD I am hoping to use that to help elevate myself and canine conservationists to the point where we're not just kind of working as field technicians coming in and helping someone else with their research, but we actually will have the ability to Conduct our own research and kind of be more scientists in our own right.

Speaker 2: 36:52

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: 36:54

And contribute to to scientific knowledge, both about the training of these dogs and about their use in science and you know conservation in general. So for my PhD I'm studying two different systems where I am looking at how fragmentation impacts the diet and movement of apex predators.

Speaker 2: 37:11

Oh, cool yeah.

Speaker 3: 37:13

So, in plain English, I am going to be going up to Alaska and the dogs are finding wolf poop on a bunch of islands in Alaska. And then we're looking at how the size of the islands, the shape of the coastline, the age of the trees, you know kind of like post logging and a bunch of other factors influence how the wolves are moving and what they're eating. And then we're doing a similar thing in El Salvador with Pumas. So there is a very small population of Pumas in El Salvador we have no idea how many and that area is really fragmented, not because it's an island but because of pretty heavy deforestation and really high human population density. So we're gonna be looking at again similar questions of what factors influence how, how the Pumas are using the landscape and what they're eating, again using the dogs to find all that scat.

Speaker 2: 37:57

I Love that my day job is. I'm a high school science teacher and I was literally we were talking about habitat fragmentation With with my one class, so it's kind of cool I. Can say I talked to a scientist, is doing it. It's not just a term we have to go over.

Speaker 3: 38:18

Yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of different types of fragmentation, which is that I'm really enjoying that I get to work in these two absolutely amazing study systems on like some of the coolest animals in the world, but actually answering very similar questions, even though it looks totally different on the surface.

Speaker 2: 38:32

Yeah, that's cool. I like artificial versus natural fragmentation. That's cool, yeah. So, kayla, how did you all, before we move on, like, how did you get into all this?

Speaker 3: 38:42

Yeah, so I, through undergrad at Colorado College, I was studying ecology because that's what I knew I wanted to do, and I was kind of starting to realize like, oh man, I Thought I wanted to be like Jane Goodall. Like you know, that was basically who I wanted to be when I grew up, and I am now realizing that science and ecology is more and more based on Modeling and camera trap data and all of these non-invasive methods. I'm not sure that I'm gonna get to go play outside the way that I like and have these really cool Like relationships and understandings of animal behavior that come from actually physically being out there. So that was something I was starting to worry about and Meanwhile, totally separately, I had started a dog training business To pay my way through college. So I was spending half of my day learning about ecology and half of my day earning money training dogs. And as I got closer and closer to graduation, people were starting to ask me why don't you just go into dog training? Why are you talking about this really hard path of taking all of these random field tech jobs? It only lasts a couple months and then you have to move and you don't get paid hardly anything. Why don't you just be a dog trainer? And I kept being like, well, I just I like being outside and I really care about conservation, like the dogs are cool, but it's just like conservation is the thing that lights me up. And then someone sent me a video about conservation detection dogs and I just immediately like you know galaxy brain I was like, oh my god, I Can do both. I could have this really cool one-on-one relationship with a dog. I can do the training that I enjoy, I can do the animal behavior study of actually watching my dog, while also basically guaranteeing that I never get closed into a lab in front of a screen, because if you know the dog person who goes out and finds the poop, you're not gonna make that person sit at a desk 360 days a year.

Speaker 3: 40:31

And then I hit a wall. I Started emailing every single conservation detection dog organization I could find. I was emailing people in New Zealand, in the UK, all across the US and saying, oh my god, do you take interns, do you take volunteers? Like, how do I get involved? And every single one of them said no. Every single one of them told me it's, you're not gonna be able to get into this line of work. Basically, um and I'm not really someone who takes no for an answer well, so I spent a couple years from there working other jobs, but the whole time I was like thinking about conservation dogs. I was like, you know, maybe, maybe I can get this sort of experience and that will help me, like be more competitive in the conservation dog world.

Speaker 3: 41:12

And Then, ultimately, I did manage to get a job. I Was in the process of writing a Fulbright grant to go to New Zealand and study conservation dogs and through the process of writing that Grant, I actually was offered a job with one of the organizations I'd interviewed. So that kind of shows some of these side doors, back doors, that you can use to get in. But all of that has led me to be really, really passionate about helping more people get into this line of work with Conservation detection dogs. And that's where our course comes in, because I got sick of as soon as I was doing this work professionally. Now I was the one getting dozens of emails a week from people being like, oh my god, this is the coolest thing.

Speaker 3: 41:55

I have a job like yours and then I was on the other end of it being like, okay, I'm gonna like write up. I wrote up a really nice template response with like recommended readings and like places to go to learn more, and then I was just sending people that. And then eventually, you know, we decided so. I had a free podcast at the time. That was hundreds of hours of episodes of just everything you could want to know about conservation dogs, but it's, you know, kind of disjointed. It's a podcast. Still, it's not perfect. It's not a full course.

Speaker 3: 42:23

So my co-founders and I decided to create a full course. It's 18 weeks of material with like 10 guest instructors and it covers Everything from dog selection to odor dynamics, to search strategy, to networking and really, you know, it's not perfect. It's all online. And to know how to do this job, well, you do really need to have some in-person mentoring, but it's what we can do right now and we're really proud of it. And you know, again, I'm just really personally invested in that because I had so many people tell me no, you know, just six, seven, eight years ago, when I was really trying to get into the slot at fork the first time around.

Speaker 2: 42:57

Mm-hmm. Well, that's excellent. So my my next question, kila, is If, is that on your the main website for canine conservationists?

Speaker 3: 43:06

Yeah. So if you just go to canineconservationistorg I believe there's a tab that says learn, yeah, and if you if you go to that, then you can see there's the course you can apply for financial aid. And we have also have like an online learning club where we do video Feedback of people's dog training. So that's much more specific to if you've got a dog that you're trying to prepare, kind of fills in the gaps around again like the actual hands-on training of the dog.

Speaker 2: 43:34

Nice, okay, so we'll make sure there's. That link is in our show notes.

Speaker 3: 43:37

Yeah, great. Thank you so much yet Again. Just really passionate about helping people go from being excited to actually getting that first job.

Speaker 2: 43:46

Yeah, yeah, well, and that's so amazing. You made that resource. That's very, very cool. I Thank you. I was poking around your website. I saw that, so yeah, okay. So are you okay if we move to the standard question?

Speaker 3: 44:02

No, I'm ready.

Speaker 2: 44:04

Okay, perfect, awesome. Thanks for talking to us about canine conservationists they're so adorable, but also great information. We have a couple standard questions on the show that we always ask our guests. The first one is a pet story from your life. Did you share one with us?

Speaker 3: 44:21

Yeah, this is a hard one because I have so many pet stories, but I think I'll tell you all the story of how I met my current working dog, barley. So he's my main guy. He's 10 years old and he was left at an animal shelter because his family was kind of going through a lot of turmoil and it was basically one of those situations where everything was coming down at once and something had to give. So they left their beloved dog at the shelter with a really nice note telling everyone at the shelter how lovely he was and how much they loved him. And I at the time was working at this animal shelter as a behaviorist, so my job was taking all the dogs and cats that were scared of people or didn't like other dogs or whatever, and assessing and training those to try to help their odds of adoption. And I was starting to look for a dog and one of my coworkers at the shelter saw this border colleague come in and read the note and he was fat but he was so happy and he was just so confident and cool and energetic and she called me on the radio and said hey, kail, I think your dog might have just walked at the door and so I was like, okay, cool, I've got an extra 20 minutes before the shelter opens for the day so I can go check this dog out.

Speaker 3: 45:31

And I go over and find him in this kennel and again, he's so overweight, he looks like a coffee table and he's kind of matted, which at the time I judged his old owners for it. I've now realized that if you don't brush this dog for like two days, he starts getting matted. So it was not their fault at all and he was sitting there and one of the things you'll know about Barley if you follow us on Instagram is that his tongue is about an inch and a half two inches too big for his mouth. So he's sitting up on this bench and he's kind of got his head cocked and his tongue is sticking like three inches out the side of his mouth. He looks like he's been electrocuted and I kind of look at this dog and he looks back at me and I was just thinking I think my co-worker is joking with me right now Like I don't think this is my dog.

Speaker 3: 46:20

And then I was kind of like you know what, screw it, like I've got this for 20 minutes, I'll take him on a walk and see, and you know within like 30 seconds I was taking video and sending a video to my boyfriend at the time being like, all right, I'm bringing a dog home, this is my guy, and you know, barley and I have now survived. I don't really want to think about how many different boyfriends since then, but he's my, he's my main guy. I will never have a dog that I love the way that I love Barley and, like it's just been. He's been at my side through so many jobs and through my entire conservation dog career. I was not working in the field when I got him and he is going to retire at some point during my PhD and it's just. It's very hard to overstate how important to be this dog is.

Speaker 2: 47:03

And yeah, everybody who is involved with dogs. They have that heart dog.

Speaker 3: 47:09

Yeah, yeah. And Barley's he's very kind of sparkly. He's got a photo of him up right now.

Speaker 2: 47:16

He's a handsome guy, he's wearing an orange vest with a good he is.

Speaker 3: 47:25

He's got this, he's got this like spark. In this way. He like looks at people that I've had a couple of friends almost be kind of weirded out by him because they're like he makes too much eye contact, like it looks like he knows what we're saying. He is way too smart for his own good. I could go on and on about all of his crimes against the trash. He's a perfect working dog and an absolute terror to live with and I love him so much.

Speaker 2: 47:52

That's great. Yeah, we've done so many different podcast episodes on dog intelligence within the breeds and there's all the breeds and then there's the border callie so far beyond everybody else, like it's not even close.

Speaker 3: 48:06

No, they're freaky smart yeah.

Speaker 2: 48:08

Something like a five or six year old human. Comparable, yeah, comparable to, but with the athletic body, but with the athletic body of, like the world's greatest athlete on earth, like Usain Bolt, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:23

They're terrifying and it's great when they use their powers for good. And then there are times where Barley uses his powers again mostly for evil crimes against the trash and I am yet to figure out a trash system that can outdo my dog and I am supposed to be the smart one in this relationship.

Speaker 2: 48:42

Oh, I love it. Well, you know, kayla. Thank you for sharing so much about Barley. If you want more pictures of Barley, I'm just on your website and where's what's Barley's handle on Instagram? You mentioned Barley's on Instagram.

Speaker 3: 48:55

Yeah, so we've got canine conservationists is kind of the main work Instagram and then my personal Instagram is colleagues without borders.

Speaker 2: 49:03

Collies without borders. Yep, okay, cool We'll uh. Colleagues without borders. There you are, okay, bunsen and Beaker just followed you guys, oh great.

Speaker 3: 49:15

Be sure to follow you back, okay.

Speaker 2: 49:18

Very cool. So the last question I you know it's a standard one on her show is for a super fact. We challenge our guests to blow us away with something that they know. I was wondering if you got one in the pocket for us, kayla.

Speaker 3: 49:32

Yeah. So I've got one that was submitted by lab, my lab mate, Lara Lara Magnak, who's also working on her PhD here at Oregon State, and she says that hagfish slime so like the slime on the outside of this fish called a hagfish can expand to up to 10,000 times its original size when it hits seawater.

Speaker 2: 49:54

Oh my God, it's like the crap that's in diapers. It's like that polyacrypter.

Speaker 3: 50:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't that crazy.

Speaker 2: 50:03

That is pretty wild. I was so lucky to see a hagfish in real life they are. They're kind of creepy looking.

Speaker 3: 50:11

Yeah, they, they might deserve that name. Um, yeah, they're not the cutest animal out there, but very, very cool.

Speaker 2: 50:20

All right, that's a great super fact. Thousands of times, yeah.

Speaker 3: 50:25

Slimey, that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 50:27

Yeah, kayla, we're at the end of our interview. This has been a delight and a treat, educational, fun and heartwarming. Um, where can people follow you anywhere else besides Instagram? Are you, is your organization, anywhere else on socials?

Speaker 3: 50:43

We are most active on Instagram and Facebook. Unfortunately, I am just not a tick tock uh real maker for the most part. And then anyone who wants to find me on Twitter, slash X. I am there as well, and if I ever get myself over to blue sky or any of those other socials, I will be sharing that when that happens.

Speaker 2: 51:02

All right, we'll have a couple of links to the socials there.

Speaker 4: 51:06

Yeah, great Thanks.

Speaker 2: 51:09

Well, kayla, best of best luck in the future. I know it's a it's a bit of a haul to get your PhD. We're going to be cheering you on and anytime you'd like to come back to talk dogs and conservation, we'd be happy to help you. We'd be happy to have you.

Speaker 3: 51:22

Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, thank you so much, and thank you for everything you're doing for science, communication and getting this next generation excited. And uh, and out there in the woods. We always end our podcasts with um, uh, we hope that you're feeling inspired to get out there and be a canine conservationist in whatever way suits your passions and skill set, and that sounds like exactly what you guys are doing here as well. Um, I really, really admire it.

Speaker 2: 51:44

Uh, dogs are an easy sell with just about anything. You want to go in the woods? Well, maybe not, but hey, there's dogs. Oh, okay, let's go in the woods.

Speaker 3: 51:54

Yeah, yeah, you want to spend all day looking for poop. That's a bunch, but yeah, you put me behind a dog and I will do that for, apparently, the rest of my career.

Speaker 1: 52:03

Okay, it is time for story time with me, adam. If you don't know what story time is, story time is when we talk about stories that have happened within the past one or two weeks. Uh, dad, do you have a story?

Speaker 2: 52:15

I do. You drove through the weird weather right, Adam, Tonight, Like you had some sketchy drive right.

Speaker 1: 52:21

Yeah, I couldn't see anything.

Speaker 2: 52:23

Yeah. So the weather the last week and a half has been bananas. It was getting warm and then it kind of like stopped getting warm and then it went right back into the icebox. Two or three days ago I think it was minus 25. It felt like minus 32 with the wind, and today it felt really cold. I don't know if it's that cold I'd have to check the temperature outside but we're also in a blizzard.

Speaker 2: 52:49

And the reason why I'm telling you this is I was I got home early enough to take the dogs for a walk, but it was way too cold for Beaker. Minus 25 is beyond what is kind of like fair for her to be out in more than going pee and poop really quick. But guess what, we have a secret weapon. No, we have beaker snow pants and I figured out how to put them on her really quick and so they're on super secure. She didn't fight it all. She knew what they were and she what didn't give me sad face.

Speaker 2: 53:20

She was happy the whole time and as soon as we got her snow pants on, we were out racing around and it was just super cool to see her out in the frigid temperatures going through really deep snow and in not having not not bugging her feet, because anybody with a dog that's out in the cold knows what their dog looks like when their feet is cold, like beaker. She doesn't want to put her feet down. She looks very pathetic and sad with her cold feet and then when they get really bad, she has to, like sit down and chew at her feet because I think they're so cold, like maybe, that her mouth warms them up and that's way too cold. So, yeah, we went for a big, long walk, no problems. It was like perfect for her because she's got, she's fuzzy enough that that temperature isn't going to make her body cold, for you know, in 20, 25 minutes. And of course people always ask does Bunsen need snow pants? No, bunsen is snow pants. He doesn't need them because he's basically his own snow pants. And that's my story.

Speaker 1: 54:21

All right, I have a bit of a story I have. I have like, I have like a story and a little bit like when I get home. Now we I've gotten into a routine with the dogs. Where I get home, they go crazy. And then I come over to the living room and I lay on the ground with them, and then Bunsen and Beaker are there because they're they're always super excited to see me. And then sometimes Ginger walks up and you go behind my head and I give her a little pet. She looked at me right now when I'm yowd, bunsen is super huggy and wants all the hugs and all the pets and all the cuddles. Beaker, on the other hand, doesn't really like cuddles all that much, but I think I think she's starting to warm up to me because she started hugging into me and putting her head on my chest and she is without me grabbing her. So she's she's doing it on her own volition. So Beaker is starting to starting to cuddle with me and then Ginger, after the dogs leave cuddles with me as well. She like comes down and lays on my chest for a bit.

Speaker 1: 55:18

But last night Beaker and Ginger got so upset with each other. Beaker couldn't get Ginger because she was like behind the couch and Ginger was hissing and scratching at Beaker because Beaker was being a bit of an a-hole. But yeah, ginger kind of won that one because like she went up on the banister and just stood there and looked down at Beaker and Beaker couldn't, couldn't reach her. But yeah, that's my story is all, all of the animals kind of get jealous of each other, which is funny Because like Beaker gets jealous of Bunsen when he has a toy or when he's getting attention, and then Bunsen gets jealous of Beaker when she's getting attention, and then Ginger comes along and she isn't really jealous, but the dogs get jealous of her when she gets attention. But yeah, that's my story. Mum, do you have a story?

Speaker 4: 56:04

I sure do so. Jason took the dogs out today and it is super cold outside. It's below Chris outside temperature for the walk. Okay, yep, so I was staying at home and I always watch out the window to make sure that both dogs go around the corner with Jason, but today Bunsen was losing his mind on Jason. I don't know, oh you were watching that. Yeah, there was a mitt on the ground and Bunsen was like jumping barking, jumping barking.

Speaker 2: 56:42

We were having fun. It was so fun.

Speaker 4: 56:45

He was ducking and dodging and barking and I was like what are these shenanigans happening here? And then I watched you go one way to get Beaker and Bunsen looked at you, looked at the garage, looked at you, looked at the house, looked at you and started running back towards the house.

Speaker 2: 57:12

Yeah, that was very weird.

Speaker 4: 57:15

I know it's like he didn't want to go, but it's cold outside, it's his power boost. I was shocked. So I was waiting for you to call him to say, hey, come on. And then I went and opened up the garage and guess who? Came in Bunsen with a like snow covered face because he was doing the burner facial out there in the snow. And that's what happened. So why do you think he didn't go with you?

Speaker 2: 57:45

He was looking to see if you were coming and I think he was hungry because it's because it's hungry too.

Speaker 2: 57:51

Yeah, we have him on a bit of a diet, not that he was chunky before, but like he's super trim now. Yeah, but also because it's getting lighter, I've been able to take the dogs for walks like normal walks when I get home from work instead of like a front field walk, and those front field walks are relatively short. I got home later today and it was supper time and he's like no, this is stupid, it's supper time, it's not walk time. So that's my theory.

Speaker 4: 58:22

Yeah, but anyway that's my story.

Speaker 2: 58:26

Guess what temperature it's supposed to be tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, Chris.

Speaker 4: 58:32

No, thank you, it's supposed to be minus 35 next. Tuesday no, it is not.

Speaker 2: 58:38

Yeah, it is.

Speaker 4: 58:39

I'm in a fact. Check you in real time.

Speaker 2: 58:41

You can. You'll be very sad.

Speaker 4: 58:43

I think I am going to be approaching, oh you just saw it, didn't you?

Speaker 2: 58:53

Oh, what is with this weather? It was like plus 10 two weeks ago.

Speaker 4: 59:00

That's crazy.

Speaker 2: 59:02

That's crazy.

Speaker 4: 59:03

Well we'll get more use out of.

Speaker 2: 59:07

We'll get more use out of Bunker snow pants.

Speaker 4: 59:10

There is always a silver lining. Hey, and I saw a rainbow today on my way to work.

Speaker 2: 59:16

It was a snow bow.

Speaker 4: 59:17

It was a snow bow, that's what.

Speaker 2: 59:18

I thought because the snow was coming. Yeah, it's the ice crystals in the air. That's lucky. You saw that.

Speaker 4: 59:27

Oh, I feel lucky now. Where's my pot of gold?

Speaker 2: 59:31

It's frozen.

Speaker 4: 59:32

Frozen exactly, all right.

Speaker 1: 59:37

Okay, thank you so much for listening to my section of the podcast, sticking around until until my part. I can't wait to see all of you guys on the next podcast episode. I've been trying. My calculus teacher wants to listen to the podcast. I'm like Dr West is like has anyone listened to podcasts? And then I put in like the chat. I was like my dad has a podcast, and then he was like your dad has a podcast, your dad does a lot of things. Maybe I should, maybe I should pay attention. I'm like yep, and then today he was like, oh, did you watch that show that I recommended the other day? I'm like, no, did you listen to my dad's podcast? And he said I didn't realize that was the arrangement that we had. So, anyway, that's, that's a bit of a bit of a tangent, but yeah thank you so much for listening to this section of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:00:27

Bye, bye.

Speaker 2: 1:00:28

That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the science podcast. We'd like to thank Kayla, our guest this week, who talked to us about detection dogs and her awesome work with sniffing out poop with the help of her furry friends to help out biologists Really cool. And a special shout out to the top dogs, that's the top tier of our community, the Paw Pack Plus. We'd love for you to join, and it's a way to keep the podcast free. A perk is you get your name read at the end of the show. So, chris, take it away.

Speaker 4: 1:01:00

Bianca Hyde, mary Raider, tracy Domingu, susan Wagner, andrew Lynn, helen Chin, Tracy Halberg, amy C, jennifer Smathers, laura Stephenson, holly Birch, brenda Clark, ann Yuchita, peggy McKeel, terry Adam, debbie Anderson, sandy Brimer, tracy Linebaugh, mary Ann McNally, fun Lisa, shelly Smith, julie Smith, diane Allen, breanne Haas, linda Sherry, carol McDonald, catherine Jordan, courtney Brovin, donna Craig, wendy, diane Mason and Luke Liz Button, kathy Zercher and Ben Rathart.

Speaker 2: 1:01:47

For science, empathy and cuteness.