Page 22 of Sheltering Instinct

“Enrico is an animal lover through and through. Everyone knows that about him. He’d wear you out talking about his after-military career plans. Africa was calling him. Enrico has a special kind of anger that runs through him when he talks about poachers. While we were in the sandbox, Enrico was making African contacts, learning what he could from them, and helping the rangers out by solving some of their training issues where he could. A buddy of his at Etosha Park in Namibia called up, saying they were having trouble with their scent training. Would Enrico mind flying over and seeing if he couldn’t pinpoint the problem?”

“Did he?” Reaper asked.

“Jumped on the first plane. Two things. First, their trainers were putting the scent source in the training wall whilea helper would stand on the other side. When they heard the trainer start his high-pitched praise, the dog’s reward of choice—say, a tug toy or a Kong—was tossed over the top. That was supposed to appear to the dog that the scent source itself was providing the reward.”

“Why would that be bad?” Hailey asked.

“Couple of things,” Levi said. “Let’s start with the payment for a good find. In order for the reward to be immediate and look like the scent provided it, the helper would have to stand behind the concealed item. At that point, the dog could hunt the human scent and know that the thing they were looking for was behind one of those doors in the training wall.”

“Oh, yeah.” Hailey gave a nod. “I get that.”

“And because the scent wall divided the room in half and the reward person was behind the wall, it was convenient for the trainer to hide the scent. That’s especially true if they were working on the skill over and over again.”

“Yup.” Hailey nodded. “And the problem with the trainer hiding the scent source?”

“The trainer could very well have some subtle body tell that you and I couldn’t see on tape but a dog would pick up on easily. Too long a look, a pointed looking away, anything really. A dog would pay attention and remember how to get his reward.”

“And this scenario is very much like the one we saw in Texas,” Goose said. “The second dog we inspected, Diabla, was tuned in to her handler for that very reason. When we set up a double-blind, she couldn’t find the scent.”

“How do you fix that?” Hailey asked.

“It’s not a good practice to give any kind of reward—voice or play—when the dog finds the scent because the dog will stop working after the find,” Levi said. “In a real-world scenario, there may be several scent sources in a room that we need toclear. We want the dog to go in, indicate on every last scent that it finds, and when they’ve found everything and signaled each one for its handler, then go back to an exact spot. It’s there that the handler offers a reward.”

“It’s called DFR, delayed final response,” Reaper explained. “A two-person team could still do the job. One person wearing gloves would place the scents and leave through a second door so there was no possible exchange of information in front of the dog. The dog searches the room, finds all the scents, and then goes to his spot to get the praise and games.”

“Pretty quick, the dogs in Etosha were up to their real-world tasks,” Levi said.

Hailey smiled. “That’s so interesting.”

“When Enrico was there doing the work, it was everything he'd imagined it to be. He fell in love with the place and took a job. For the last few years, he’s been training K9s to support both the rangers, who track animals outside of the park and the military and police forces that protect inside the park. We’re talking about developing fearless tactical dogs that fight the bad guys but don’t get eaten by the lions.” Levi grinned.

“I’ve been to Etosha. It’s an astonishing experience,” Hailey said.

“Yeah?” Halo turned to her. “What were you doing down there?”

“A WorldCares friend of mine, Gwen Metz, and I went over to see her parents. Similar to Enrico, her folks were on a bucket list vacation to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. Once they got there, they fell in love with the people and the country and didn’t want to leave. So they uprooted, quite literally, and moved there.”

“Why quite literally?” Levi asked.

“They’re biotechnologists.” She shut her laptop lid so she wasn’t peering over the screen at everyone. “Their work focuseson developing heat and drought-resistant grape varieties so vineyards can use less water. The Metzes dug up the grape vines they were cultivating and decided to test them out in Namibian conditions. The vineyard is just outside of the national park. I got to lounge around, sipping wine and enjoying the experience. Since it was dry season, the animals would gather at the watering holes at dusk and dawn. We’d go in with one of the Metzes’ guide friends to see the animals cluster. Just the trip of a lifetime. It was surreal.” She smiled. “It was hard to believe I was there, and an elephant was walking beside our vehicle. Where I had lived in East Africa, we didn’t have the Big Five animals.”

“Their vineyard is right outside of the park?” Reaper asked.

“You can see the entrance when you’re on the top of the hill.”

Handing Levi’s phone back to him, Noah said, “Tell me about that video.”

“Mojo is one of the dogs Enrico trained to work alongside the military. Tough job. Brave people who do that work. Enrico said that just this spring, the soldiers were in a gunfight with a gang of poachers killing rhinos. The poachers would leave the carcasses and take the horns to sell. In that fight, two poachers were killed and one of the soldiers. It was the soldier who handled Mojo that went down. Mojo can’t work in the park anymore. Rhinos set him off.”

“Off?” Reaper scowled.

“Yeah, he’s rhino sour. Enrico says he could probably build Mojo’s tolerance back up, but they have to balance how much time and focus that would consume. And like we were saying about retraining the dogs from Beast Mode, you’re taking a chance that something could retrigger Mojo. Enrico thinks just getting him a job where there aren’t any rhinos is the ticket.”

“There aren’t any jobs with the rangers outside the park?” Halo asked.

“As to the rhinos, they’re out in the wild in the other areas of Namibia,” Hailey said. “I understand they’ve been working on growing the black rhino population in their natural territories.”

“Meaning anywhere in Namibia might be problematic for Mojo?” Halo asked.

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