Using Dogs to Count Critically Endangered African Rabbits with Esther Matthew

Today I have the joy of talking to Esther Matthew about training conservation dogs for a critically endangered South African lagomorph: the riverine rabbit.

Questions answered by Ester: :

• What was the goal of this study?


• What other measures had been attempted?


• Why did you have to use roadkill?


• How did you measure specificity?


• Can you describe the 3 phases of the study?


• Some other trainers hesitate to use off-target species in proofing for training, which always seemed odd to me. You decided to use negative targets in training here. Can you explain why and what results you got?


• You didn’t reward on unconfirmed hides. Did you do any training to help prepare the dog for the variable reinforcement? How did the dog respond?

Where to find Esther Matthew:

Youtube:   Jessie’s Story

Facebook:  Jessie the Border collie

Instagram:  jessiethebc | estherexplorer

You can support the K9 Conservationists Podcast by joining our Patreon at patreon.com/k9conservationists.

K9 Conservationists Website

Go Fund Me