Possum-detection dog Pepper at work in the backcountry. Photo: Supplied/Michael Tunnicliff
For specialist detection dogs, sniffing out predators in remote South Westland is just part of their day job.
They are an important part of the Predator Free South Westland mission to eliminate every possum, rat and stoat from 100,000 hectares of backcountry, farmland and towns.
Rat-dog handler Chelsea Price has spent years heading into the West Coast bush with fully certified detection dog Baxter.
"It's pretty adventurous and difficult and rugged, but the dogs love it," she said.
Baxter has had some impressive finds in areas, where they were not expecting rats and had not seen any on their network of cameras, she said.
"When you're going through the bush, and you know there's not supposed to be rats around and your dog's not finding anything, when they do [find a scent], it shows 'this is something here'.
"It's exciting and it's also really scary, if you know what the implications might be for the project, but it's always good news to find it and to know."
A lot weighed on the dog-and-handler team in the fight to become predator free, Price said.
"It's really about you reading your dog in the bush and having the confidence to be, like, 'Yes, he's indicating on this species. This now means we are going to get the team in with traps or bait stations, or we might even do an aerial response'."
After years of backcountry searches, Baxter - a former rescue dog - is now semi-retired.
He was "an old man", who loved to lie in the sun, when he was off the clock, but he was back on deck for training at the Franz Josef disc gold course.
Small handfuls of ship rat bedding were hidden in bushes, while Price got Baxter suited up with his vest and muzzle, ready to detect.
Baxter gets a treat after every find of ship rat bedding. Photo: Tess Brunton/RNZ
Dogs and their handlers go through training, and they may take a few years to become certified as a team and registered for work under the conservation dogs programme, run by the Department Of Conservation.
The training involves getting their dog to focus on one predator species.
Different dogs have different responses to predators - some are more passive, lying on scat, while dogs like Baxter have an active response, potentially standing up against a tree and looking up, with a big wagging tail.
To pass, dogs need to show they are obedient, are not interested in native birds and have honed into their target species, while handlers must also demonstrate their knowledge of dog safety and welfare.
Once she used her command 'seek', Baxter took off at a run, nose to the ground, scouting for signs of rats. He did not take long, tail wagging vigorously, despite the rates being well-hidden in a tree hollow.
He got a reward after every find - a treat, with his favourite ball thrown after his last find.
Price said the trick was figuring out the dog's reward - Kaia loved treats.
Kaia only had interim certification, but she would probably apply to be fully certified in the new year, Price said.
Possum-dog handler Michael Tunnicliff and dog Pepper are no strangers to the rugged backcountry.
Baxter sniffs out some ship rat bedding during training at the Franz Josef disc golf course. Photo: Supplied/Chad Cottle
"We used to spend months chasing individual possums in the backcountry, way up in the mountains," he said. "Most of my time, at the moment, we spend walking around in the dark on farmland, removing the possums from areas where we can't use aerial toxin or traps.
"The job's literally from sea to mountain tops and everything in between. If there's a possum there, we'll try and get it."
They cleared about 370 possums over a couple of months from a property a few years ago. Kaia was very dedicated to her job, Tunnicliff said.
"I've had to pull her out of a few trees a few metres up, like six foot off the ground," he said.
"You get there, looking for your dog and it's, like, 'Oh, she's up the tree'. Pretty good getting up, but she's needs a bit of help getting down most of the time."
Kaia put in the hard yakka, when she was on the job, but made the most of her down time, Tunnicliff said.
"When she's at home, she's doing what she does now, and just sits on the couch and groans and moans, until someone gives her attention."
Predators have already been removed from more than 90 percent of the project area in South Westland.
Dogged detection teams must help seek out any remaining predators, as they aimed for 100 percent predator-free.
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